Englishsecretaryinfrance's Blog

Clever me, eh?

englishsecretaryinfrance — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 19:11:02 +0000

Testing, testing

englishsecretaryinfrance — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 06:25:42 +0000

Just a quick post to check my blog is still working!

Why I love being a VA

englishsecretaryinfrance — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:24:56 +0000

Even on a bad day, I absolutely love being a VA! Just the very thought of sitting in my office, here in France and working for somebody in Miami Florida (who’s probably asleep – what could be more efficient than that?) or somebody in the UK, or even somebody who only lives a couple of miles from me puts me in awe of modern technology. Who could ever have predicted that working in this manner would have been possible all those years ago when I was at college learning to type? Don’t even mention the shorthand lessons!!! (I still use it for telephone messages and shopping lists!)

Sorry, I went off subject there! As if that wasn’t exciting enough, I can more or less work my hours to suit me whilst usually being available to my family. When you remember that I’m making a very useful contribution to our household expenses, you’ve got the ideal job.

Every single day is different when you work as a VA, and I absolutely love it!!!

Make sure you know what you are getting!

englishsecretaryinfrance — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:38:59 +0000

Have you just found for the third time in six months that the VA who has been working for you has been moved onto another job and that you have to start again with a new one? This is not only irritating, but can cost you time and money whilst you train a new VA into your way of doing things. It pays to make sure that you know up front what you are getting when you hire a new VA. A self-employed VA, like you, is a business owner and, provided she is a suitable fit, will work for you in a dedicated manner, whilst a VA from an agency is likely to be moved around from job to job.
Some of my clients have been with me for three years now, and I would only move a client onto a fellow VA if I thought we weren’t a good match. My newest client has been with me for a month. I find that there is a natural process, since some clients change track, or their lives change so when one moves on, they are naturally replaced as new clients come along.

Time Differences

englishsecretaryinfrance — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:22:04 +0000

Although I absolutely love being a VA, one of the considerations for me is the time difference. Many of my clients are based in the States, whilst I (in case you hadn’t guessed) am based in France. It suits me fine to start my working day at 3pm, which corresponds to the start of the business day in the US, but I find it very hard to end the day and get myself off to bed. I just can’t resist doing a little bit more. I now set my timer for 11 pm and TURN THE COMPUTER OFF!!! Does anybody else who works from home have this problem?

New Client = New Procedures

englishsecretaryinfrance — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:05:10 +0000

I don’t know about you, but the more clients I have, the harder I have to work to remember exactly how they like things done. One method that I have been using more and more recently is to write down a step by step procedure of how exactly to do the task in hand. If I do this early on in the relationship, it often shows up holes in my understanding of what we are trying to achieve between us, and the earlier these things are ironed out, the better. I’ve also found it useful to have a step by step procedure written down for those clients who I only work for sporadically. It saves such a lot of time, and reduces stress to be able to just look up exactly how I did the task the last time. It may seem too time consuming, especially when you’re busy, to stop and make a note of each step of a procedure, but it actually saves time in the long run.

What about you? Do you have any tips for staying on top of the multi-tasking that being a VA for multiple clients entails?

New Client (brag, brag!!!)

englishsecretaryinfrance — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:59:28 +0000

I gained another new client last week! Thank you very much Karen from Link Vines for your confidence in me. Here’s to a long and happy work association.

Just had to get that off my chest – there are days when I actually feel like I can make a success of this VA business of mine!

Whoops, I made a mistake!!!

englishsecretaryinfrance — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:49:49 +0000

I had a blonde moment one day last week and sent a package from one of my clients to the wrong customer. It was a heavy, cumbersome law course book weighing nearly 2kg and I sent it to a customer in Pennsylvania instead of one in Oregon. Later that day, when I realised something was wrong, I nearly died from embarrassment! I even went back to the post office to try to retrieve the package, but it had already gone. What to do? This particular client has been with me for a year and a half, and his system is idiot-proof, so I had no alternative but to contact him apologise and admit my mistake. He was about as understanding as he could be, given the circumstances, and gave me the contact details for both customers so I could ask one to send the package on to the other, and apologise to the second customer for the inevitable delay..

I did the best I could, contacted both of his customers and explained my mistake. The first person, who had received the wrong package, agreed to forward it to the second customer. Everybody is happy.

When you work for yourself, you have to accept that mistakes are going to be made and think in advance how you will deal with them if they occur. My client was cool about what I had done, and I think glad that I’d sorted out the problem for him, instead of letting him deal with it. A lesson learned for me – I now CHECK and DOUBLE CHECK addresses!!!

Here’s a thought for you

englishsecretaryinfrance — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:17:58 +0000

I’ve always believed that you should never turn down any work that comes your way, provided you’re capable of doing it, since you never know where it might lead. this is wby I accepted a job offer from Papa Media last Autumn, which involved packaging and sending out books, CD’s and DVD’s with them reimbursing the postage and paying me a small handling charge each month. Not much to blog about there, you might think, but this small job has led to me being offered work for Cunard sending our their latest book, Queen Mary 2, Une Croisière Gastronomique and also now to becoming the French branch of Kitchencraft. The fact that I could show that I already have procedures set up for someone else without doubt in each case gave the client confidence in my abilities to treat his business seriously, and we all want that feeling. These exciting times of internet growth, it doesn’t matter where in the world you live, the world truly is your oyster!

What a flippin’ week!

englishsecretaryinfrance — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:39:59 +0000

I had a disaster this week. A thunderstorm knocked out my internet connection so I was off-line until the nice France Telecom man could fit me in to come and have a look at it. Next thing I go out and buy is a Dell Inspiron with wifi connection so I can at least sit in comfort in the internet café using a computer I’m familiar with and that has all my software on it!