Last night before I went to bed I made a very detailed agenda about what I wanted to accomplish today. I was excited to continue my search for the perfect venue for our Start Up Princess conference (Save the Date! September 22nd in Salt Lake City). I also wanted to work on our newsletter that hasn’t gone out in awhile. But life had other plans and I try to be flexible and ready to help my friends when they need me.
At 5:30am our friends The McLaughlin’s called and asked me to come stay with their kids while they headed to the hospital to have their fourth child. I grabbed my laptop (what was I thinking!?) and headed out the door immediately. My husband brought my two girls over around 8am. So, I tended 5 kids for several hours, no laptop was opened. It was fun, but 5 kids under 5 yrs old is a lot of work. Finally around 1pm when kids were watching Duck Tales I got a chance to finally open my laptop and check emails.
That’s when I remembered Lisa Callsen, our new Virtual Assistant in Wisconsin was working on Start Up Princess today writing a press release. My heart rejoiced when I saw the press release in my inbox. Even though I wasn’t able to do what I planned today, Lisa was supporting me so I still felt productive. I was able to edit, send it back to her and tonight she’s distributing our press release for free on the web.
Virtual Assistants are the new buzz for small business owners who cannot afford an assistant full-time. The beauty of hiring a Virtual Assistant is that when you find the right one for you, they can assist with whatever administrative needs you have from answering emails, to writing press releases, to managing contacts, etc. It’s a growing field and I suspect that women will dominate this industry because it’s a great fit for mom entrepreneurs who want to stay at home and take on a client or two.
Watch for a future post when we officially introduce Lisa Callsen, Virtual Assistant for Start Up Princess.
Today’s Magic Wand: Are you ready and willing to delegate some aspect of your business to someone else? Consider hiring a virtual assistant, it might be the right time for your start up. If you’d like to get in touch with Lisa Callsen, let me know and I’ll be happy to make an introduction, she’s taking additional clients. Lisa was a paralegal and has a strong retail background as well, variety of talents and abilities, plus she’s a lot of fun, we really clicked.
Whats in it for the virtual assistant? Hired employee, or something else?
Virtual assistants are contract/freelance employees, you pay them for what you need them to do. They enjoy working for a variety of clients in a variety of industries, so I think that makes their work enjoyable and interesting.
I’m a Virtual Assistant and have been working from my home office for over 13 years – best decision I ever made. Meant I could watch my children grow up and teach them a work ethic whilst doing work I really enjoy. The daily variety and mix of clients I have is far more enjoyable than the corporate role I had years ago.