Truly Virtual

What is a Virtual Assistant?

A Professional Virtual Assistant is:

An entrepreneur who provides administrative services to their clients in collaborative and long term arrangements.
A small business owner who partners with other small business owners wanting to free themselves and grow their own business.
A business owner who works for their clients in ongoing relationships, learning as much about their clients and their working styles providing the best value for each client.
A Virtual Assistant removes geographical boundaries by communicating via phone, fax and e-mail; establishing optimum ways of working and assessing the comfort levels of the these methods with each client.
A Professional Virtual Assistant is NOT:

An employee
A temporary employee
Who uses Virtual Assistants?:

coaches, authors, consultants, real estate agents, entertainers, small business owners, home-based business owners, entrepreneurs and free agents are all examples
anyone who wants to live a more balanced, value-based life with more time to concentrate on what is really important
Advantages of using a Virtual Assistant over a regular Employee:

You do not provide equipment or office supplies
You do not support hourly wages or salaries. The client pay only for the hours worked. Time is 100% productive.
You do not provide office space
You do not provide computer equipment or software
You do not pay health, dental or eye care benefits, life or disability insurance
You do not pay payroll taxes
You do not pay retirement or 401K packages
You do not pay overtime, vacation or sick day wages
You do not pay for ongoing educational enrichment or training
You do not pay for employee "down-time"
Typical costs of Maintaining a Full-Time Administrative Assistant:

Typical Salary $36,000.00/$17.31per hour
Paid Vacation $1385.00
Temp during Vacation $2000.00
Health Insurance $1800.00
FICA Taxes $2754.00
Worker's Comp $220.00
Unemployment $309.00
Office Space $2500.00
Cost of Overtime $3115.00
Idle Time $1500.00
Annual Bonus $3000.00
Sick Time $1385.00
Other Expenses $1200.00
Total Costs $57,168.00
Total Hourly Rate $27.48 per hour
75% Productive level $36.74 per hour
50% Productive level $55.26 per hour

Note: Full-Time staff is seldom 100% productive due to idle time between tasks, personal matters, or the inability of the employer to generate work for staff because of distractions, meetings and commitments.