How virtual assistants can sandwich work around family life

How often does your heart sink when a colleague plumps down in her chair armed with 27 packs of holiday snaps and proceeds to talk to you through the first half-hour of your busy day? How often do you wish you had complete autonomy in your working life? You might want to consider becoming a virtual assistant (VA).

Vanessa Anderson from Leamington Spa set up her virtual assistance business, Anderson Remote Office Services, after feeling undervalued in her previous job as an administrator for an automotive systems firm.

"I enjoy administration and secretarial work – organising people, systems and diary management," she says. "But I was getting fed up with long hours, office politics and making sensible, cost-effective, team-building suggestions that were just ignored."

So she decided to work for herself, and began offering her services as a freelance secretary. "This was 1999," she says, "and I hadn't heard the term virtual assistant."

From those humble beginnings Anderson went on to scoop the title of Virtual Assistant of the Year at the National VA Conference and Awards Ceremony in Milton Keynes in April.

Anderson's day usually starts at 8am when she collects tapes and paperwork from a long-standing local client. Then, back at her office, she checks emails and messages. "Usually one or two other clients have detailed their requirements for the day, which can range from booking accommodation for a workshop to dealing with their invoices and expenses," she explains.

During the day she transcribes correspondence, deals with telephone calls and emails for clients, produces progress reports on work, sends out appointment letters, updates diaries and websites, and researches venues or equipment. Anderson now even has to make time to train a new assistant of her own.

The benefits of being virtual become clear at 6pm, when Anderson is able to organise the evening meal and bath and put her children to bed before heading back to the "office" to deal with work that can be done at any time. The downsides, however, are also evident. "I shut down at around 11pm – or when I'm told off by my partner for working too late as I sometimes slip into old habits and forget to leave my desk!" she says.

Anderson says that being a virtual assistant is not like being a freelance secretary. She says she always wanted to start her own business. "I had never expected to remain an individual sole trader who just earned a living," she says. "My intention had, and continues to be, to build a small business, having good people working for me enabling me to build a good client base and provide a high standard of support to our clients."

Employers find many advantages to hiring a virtual assistant, the most obvious being financial. "There's no PAYE, sickness or holiday pay to worry about, no training or equipment costs," Anderson says.

The biggest advantage, though, is flexibility. Clients use the service as little or often as they like, paying only for the time they use. That enables large organisations to outsource work, use a VA during unexpectedly busy periods or help deal with a backlog. This, in turn, saves on temp fees, as well as on the expense of having a staff member take time out from a busy day to show a temp the ropes.

Carmen MacDougall runs CMA Coaching, which offers courses for virtual assistants. She says that it's dangerous to think that all you need to be a VA is PA experience. "Some people think that if they offer themselves up as a general assistant they will get more work," she says. "But actually, the more niche you are, the more likely you are to get the clients.

Another important key to success is to know how to negotiate your fees, she says. "Don't charge less than someone else to get the business. You need to work with other VAs to use their skills, so you need to charge what you're worth."

The real joy of working for yourself as a VA is that you can choose which jobs to take and which to reject, making for a happier working life. It doesn't mean that VAs don't have bad days, of course. But it does mean that they are more in charge of their destinies. "Because of the vast variety of people and professions we work for, there is never a dull moment," says MacDougall. "Monday to Friday, nine to five – no thanks!"