Virtual Assistants are administrative experts. They are in the business of providing ongoing, right-hand administrative support to business owners who don’t have the time or space for employees.

They’re the perfect alternative to employees for those folks, and since they are consultants of a sort in their own right, they bring a whole other level of business knowledge and administrative know-how to their clients that you just don’t find in an employee.

But did you know that just like you, many Virtual Assistants focus on supporting specific target markets? Yup, they do!

For example, Virtual Author’s Assistants are administrative experts who specialize in supporting authors, speakers and others who write and publish books.

Virtual Legal Assistants are those who have the experience and special paralegal training to support attorneys.

Other Virtual Assistants specialize in supporting coaches. Some focus on the real estate industry. Wherever there is a specific industry, chances are there is at least one Virtual Assistant who caters exclusively to that group.

There are so many advantages to working with a Virtual Assistant who specializes in supporting your industry. For one thing, she comes to the table with a ready understanding of the unique aspects of your field, how things work, and what your singular goals and obstacles are.

She makes it her business to learn specifically about your particular field so that she knows the work inside and out and can structure her offerings to best suit your unique support needs. She becomes an expert at the special software and tools used to get that work done and can advise you on your best options.

Need an example? Well, let’s take real estate. A real estate agent is going to have many areas of highly specialized administrative work that just aren’t going to be done in any other kinds of business. Much of the work requires specialized skills and knowledge to perform it which means not just anyone can do it without specific training and understanding. But Real Estate Virtual Assistants specialize in that work. They get to know it exclusively and better than any other kind of Virtual Assistant out there.

In another example, there are a million different practice areas that attorneys specialize in. One area of law may have a high level of litigation whereas another may not entail any at all. The work can be so vastly different that even someone with a college degree can seem incompetent if they don’t have any knowledge or experience with the intricasies of that practice area. But you find a Virtual Legal Assistant who specializes in working with attorneys in a particular practice area, and that attorney just cloned him or herself once or twice over.

You get the same kind of difference between, say, a consulting or professional services business, and a business that is retail or sales-based. They are completely different business models that are going to have very different objectives, operations and administrative work involved. A Virtual Assistant who specializes in a specific target market is going to have a greater, in-depth level of understanding, knowledge, and specific skills needed to best care for clients within that field.

So if you’re between Virtual Assistants or just beginning to seek out your first Virtual Assistant, try looking for one who specializes in your industry. Look for Virtual Assistants who focus on your field in the Virtual Assistant directories you utilize. Or, type “Virtual Assistant” + “your industry” in the search engine bar of your browser. It’s going to greatly narrow the field and make your search much quicker and easier. And you’ll find end up finding someone who’s going to make working together that much more effortless and beneficial to your business.

RESOURCE: The VACOC Virtual Assistant Directory allows you to search specifically by target market. Check out our awesome Virtual Assistants (all of whom have been screened to meet our standards of competence and excellence) at the Virtual Assistant Directory.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Danielle Keister is a business advisor, innovator and thought leader in the Virtual Assistance profession. A veteran Virtual Assistant of 12+ years, her logical, no-nonsense approach to business development has gained her recognition as one of the leaders in the field. Her business acumen is a hot commodity among the Virtual Assistants who regularly consult her. She loves what she does and is passionate about sharing her knowledge and know-how with the world. She’s all about inspiring others to reach for their highest excellence. When not taking care of clients in her own Virtual Assistant practice, The Relief Virtual Assistance, she is busy leading the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce.

© Copyright 2009, The Portable Business™. All U.S. and International rights reserved. You are granted permission to republish this article only if used in its entirety with this copyright notice and title, article content, resource, author’s bio and links left intact.

THE ISSUE: Community food banks around the country are in dire need. With rising food prices and companies continuing to lay employees off in the declining economy, many local agencies are reporting a nearly 50% increase in demand from families needing assistance. Many of these agencies have bare pantry shelves or are otherwise not prepared to assist what many expect to be record numbers this year.

THE CHALLENGE: In view of the rising need and coming holidays, the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce has issued a challenge to Virtual Assistants worldwide to mobilize as an industry to do what they do best—helping others—by donating a minimum of $10 or more to their local food banks and charitable organizations this holiday season.

At my house, we sponsor a family each year and donate food and grocery store gift certificates to our local community service agency. I like donating gift certificates because people can get the foods they like instead of food someone else has picked out for them.

Cassandra Cooper of The Time Miner responded to my challenge on Twitter and made an excellent point:  Community service agencies are also always in need of toiletries such as bar soap, toilet paper and travel shampoos, which aren’t things that can be purchased with food stamps. These are things that would be very useful (and appreciated) to include in your donations.

My buddy Christine Wade Christine Wade of eRealtyAssistance.com had a great tip:  The Feeding America (formerly Second Harvest) website has a food bank locator in the bottom right-hand corner where you can enter your zip code and find out where to deliver food.

Christine donates food and toiletry items through her children’s Christian school every year, as well as bags of food at an annual ornament party she attends, which are then delivered to a local charity.

Another buddy, Victoria Miles, is a Virtual Assistant in Argentina and owner of TheBilingualVA.com. “I love the idea of ‘think global, act local’ that the VACOC promotes. I will be definitely embracing the initiative locally, and hopefully engaging many others to do so as well.”

VACOC member Dinah Cline is the owner of Your Success is My Success. She suggests Angel Food Ministries at www.angelfoodministries.com, a non-profit, non-denominational organization dedicated to providing grocery relief and financial support to communities throughout the United States.

Dinah likes the fact that Angel Food Ministries donates $1 to every host site’s benevolence fund for every Angel Food Box distributed.

“We are all here to help one another, whether it’s professionally or personally; being a part of the VACOC community provides this opportunity in both aspects. I feel not only blessed but honored to be a part of them both,” says Dinah.

The ways you can help are limitless and every gesture, no matter how big or small, has a big impact. Please, I implore you, will you join us this holiday season and help us help others?!

I would love to hear what you did or are doing to meet the challenge. Please do comment here with your stories and tips and ideas. You can also join in the discussion at our VACOC Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22876770984

Oh, and if you’d like to submit our release with your own info, tip and quotes included, feel free to use our template (Word format)

Thanks be giving!!!

Here's how it works:

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique enterpreneurs in the developing world.

You can lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in the developing world (hey, $25 is a WHOLE LOTTA MONEY in those areas). You choose who to lend to–whether that's a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq–and as they repay the loan, you get your money back.

If you join the VACOC lending team of Virtual Assistants, you'll be joining forces with us to work together to alliviate poverty. Once you're a part of the team, you can choose to have a future loan on Kiva "count" towards our team's impact. The loan is still yours, and repayments still come to you, but you can also choose to have the loan show up in our team's collective portfolio, so our team's overall impact will grow!

I hope you'll join!

http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=2197

Amazing Service: Never Lose Another Customer

Presented by Kevin Stirtz, the Amazing Service Guy

If you’re in business, there’s one interest we all share— how to gain and retain customer loyalty.

Amazing customer service is what it’s all about. But what gives your service that “WOW!” factor that keeps clients coming back for more?

Customer loyalty can be the silver bullet that keeps your company growing and profitable. A study by Bain & Company suggests a 5% increase in customer loyalty can produce a 25% to 95% increase in profits.

This session will help you increase loyalty more than ever before. You’ll learn real-world strategies to make sure you’re delivering exactly what your customers want and doing it better than anyone else. Afterward, you’ll have new ideas and tools you can implement right away to increase customer loyalty, customer retention, referrals and profits!

DATE: Thursday, August 21, 2008
TIME: 5pm PST / 6pm MST / 7pm CST / 8pm EST
DURATION: 60 minutes (please call in 10 min. early)
COST: FREE!

WHO SHOULD ATTEND? This class is open to all Virtual Assistants, small/boutique business owners, solo professionals, solopreneurs and independent professionals. Invite your business buddies! If you know some folks who would like to attend, feel free to copy and paste the contents on this page, and post invitations on the forums, listservs and groups you participate in.

REGISTER TODAY!

Every August marks the time of year when Virtual Assistants can contribute to the statistics and body of knowledge that is improving the industry’s understanding of itself and the education of its market. Sponsored by the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce, over 10,000 Virtual Assistants from around the world are invited to participate.

Created by Virtual Assistants (the folks who know the industry best!), the Virtual Assistant Industry Survey is the most comprehensive and in-depth survey in the Virtual Assistant profession. With 101 questions, the survey includes detailed cross-sectional data that offers unprecedented information about individual and business demographics, market data and services. Other survey topics include:

• Education, experience and credentials
• Employees and subcontractors
• Clients and target markets
• Hours and services
• Pricing and income
• Training and continuing education
• Marketing and networking
• Success, profitability and entrepreneurship
• Standards, Ethics and Educating the Public

This year’s survey focuses on how the media portrays our industry, what they’re getting wrong and what they’re getting right, our qualification standards and the issues that give a black-eye to the profession. Our collective voices can be heard and have a very real impact on properly educating those who work with us and write about us. That’s why it’s so very important that each and every Virtual Assistant take a moment to participate, be counted and have their say.

The 2008 Virtual Assistant Industry Survey is open to all professional Virtual Assistants. A copy of the 2008 Virtual Assistant Industry Survey Report will be provided at no charge to every participating Virtual Assistant at the end of the survey period August 31.

You Can Help Spread the Word!

By participating, each and every one of us makes a difference in shaping our industry. You can help us in the effort of giving every Virtual Assistant a voice by helping spread the word. Hey, it’s a great excuse for a blog, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn post, and if you belong to other Virtual Assistant forums and listservs, please tell everyone you can.

Feel free to copy and paste text and graphics as you like from any of these sources:

Office Press Release:
http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/releases/2008/080208.htm

Gritty VA Blog Post:
http://www.grittyva.com/the_gritty_virtual_assist/2008/08/get-thee-to-the.html

Survey Page:
http://www.virtualassistantnetworking.com/survey.htm

Instead, what I have done is to build the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce. It’s through this organization that I give back to the Virtual Assistant community. Much of the information we provide on our webpages is intended to help guide newcomers gain a deeper understanding of the industry, its history and its true value proposition. We offer free monthly teleseminars which are open to all (you don’t have to be a member to attend). Our forum is where I give of my personal coaching and mentoring time to members. And, Virtual Assistant business forms, templates, processes and guides built on my own successful personal practice and proprietary information can be purchased through our Virtual Assistant Business Forms store.

For those of you who have called or written to me, please don’t take it personal if you don’t hear from me. But do avail yourself of the information on the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce website. Keep checking back as we’ve got lots more in store that will be shared over the coming months. And if you have more specific business questions, submit them to the Gritty VA column here at word@grittyva.com

To your success!

She had been busy working on some marketing stuff for her business, and asked for some feedback on a small part of the picture.

I’ve been swamped with client work and projects for the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce, and it would have been so much easier to just say, "Looks great!" and been done with it.

But I saw some things that could be improved to better accomplish what she wanted, and I gave her my honest-to-goodness thoughts, and didn’t think anything more of it.

She sends me back an email, saying simply, "See, this is why I love you to pieces."

She probably had no idea how much that simple sentiment meant to me, especially at that moment. And it got me to reflecting about one of the reasons why the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce was formed.

Socializing and having folks who will give you an encouraging "attagirl" (or "attaboy" as the case may be, LOL) without hesitation is so important. It’s necessary, it’s supportive, it’s what creates community and bonds us with each other, and we all need that.

And in our industry, you can go to any number of organizations and get that. Sometimes that’s all you get.

But just as important is honest feedback so that we can help each other grow professionally and as business owners. For me, I truly believe that an equal kindness is the person who is willing to share that honest, constructive feedback along with the "attagirls" and "attaboys."

But not everyone sees that as a kindness; they think it’s being negative or not being supportive. For me, I think it’s THE most supportive thing a person can do–truly giving of one’s self and experience, knowledge and perspective to help someone else increase their knowledge and raise their consciousness.

It’s really easy to give pats on the back. What’s not so easy is telling the truth about what you really might think about something even though it might be helpful.

We all worry about hurting someone’s feelings. How many times have you thought "Gee, I really want to share this with that person, but they (or everyone one) are going to think I’m a know-it-all/negative/mean/unsupportive/fill-in-the-blank?"

But feedback–real feedback–is vital to our business growth just as much as encouragement and the attagirls/attaboys. I wanted to create a community where Virtual Assistants who aren’t playing pretend business and have a dream of making a real success of their Virtual Assistant business, could not only get encouragement and support, but also that honest feedback from their colleagues that is critical to their growth and success. For me at least, that’s the greatest kindness I can offer, and it’s what gives my heart the most joy.

Honest thoughts with helpful intentions is NEVER negative. I know for myself, I can be very direct in my writing, and often I simply don’t have the time to play with wording to make sure the delivery comes out perfect and isn’t confused with being harsh or rude. Hey, I’m working on it, LOL, but I’d rather do that than simply take the easy way out by giving false praise or saying whatever I think someone wants to hear or because that’s what everyone else is saying.

That would absolutely be out of integrity for me.

So let’s not forget about those other kindnesses we can do for each other, and help each other grow and reach beyond comfort zones.

What about you? Have you found yourself ever not contributing your true feedback due to peer pressure?

• Tell who tagged you;
• Write a description of where you spend your time online (include links); and
• Tag some more people.

So the main place I hang out online, where I spend the majority of my time these days, is the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce (naturally). I love the community we’ve created there. It’s sharp, intellectually curious people wanting to run smart businesses, who are not only passionate about their profession, but also so warm, caring and giving. It’s a beautiful thang!

Okay, so now I have to tag a couple people (who also blog). Hmmm, I don’t “get out” much lately due to the projects I’m working on so this is a tough one, especially since the two people I would normally tag have already been tagged! LOL

Let’s see… I’m going to tag a couple of my cool beans VACOC members, Tracey Lawton of Tracey Lawton Transcription & Admin and Gloria Luzier of Superior VA Solutions. You’re it!