• 
• 
• 

Making My Business More Professional

I am a photographer and I was influenced to take a chance on outsourcing by a friend who hired a virtual assistant and increased his revenues as well as increased his free time. I got jealous actually; he was doing better than I did and still found the time to have a weekend out with his family while I was struggling with all the paperwork that I had neglected because of the workload. Worse, because I was not ready to handle more work, I lost some clients and this really got me frustrated.

So I did what my friend advised me to do, I hired a virtual personal assistant. I actually just went to the internet and browsed the word and got a lot of results. I chose the top one and I registered and posted my needs. There were a lot of applicants and I had fun sorting through all of them until I finally settled on one who was able to communicate with me with ease and skill that I was surprised when I learned that she was from the Philippines. Apparently she was among the thousands who do this sort of job and I was just one of her clients.

She was actually the one who assured me that my office would turn out for the better if I hired her and because of her confidence I gave in and asked her to work for me on a trial basis of a month. She readily agreed and we settled on a fee.

Immediately, she took over the office, my office is in mainland USA, go figure how she did it from across the Pacific Ocean. Anyway, she answered the incoming calls, she settled my work schedule and my personal schedule so I would have time with my family, and she even made travel arrangements for me. She also settled my bookkeeping and my disgruntled clients. She was so good that I would get feedback from my clients saying that I had a very charming and professional secretary and how could they thank her for entertaining their concerns. The clients never could understand when I told them that she was a virtual receptionist and she was based halfway across the world.

In as little as two weeks, she had my office organized, more clients were able to set up appointments and more deals were closed, best of all, I had the Sundays off to have fun with the family. She did this so efficiently that I wished she were in my office, but then I also realized that if I did not hold on to her, I would lose whatever professionalism she was able to establish for my office.

That was more than six months ago, because of her my income got higher and I was able to hire a cleaner to do the maintenance of the office. I didn’t even need to buy an extra computer, my virtual assistant had her own and that saved me a lot of money also.

Now I realize that hiring someone to get my business into a professional mode was the best thing that ever happened. And I have held on to the same virtual assistant for the past six months. This relationship will go on for a longer time, hope that she does not give up her job.