Virtual Assistant: How to become a VA

I started out as a marketing personnel for a school. I thought I would be doing that for all of my life. I came to a point in my life where I had to do something else.

An opportunity to work in Medical Billing but I have to leave the company and look for other profession.

In 2010, I was offered to work as a virtual assistant. He's an author, motivational speaker and wants to do business online. I like the idea that I would be working from home but at that time I was also working for another company. Eventually, I had to let go of the day job and go for this virtual job.

A lot of people would tell me I can get fired any time but I tell myself not until I will teach myself how to become the best VA this person can have.

As a VA or Virtual Assistant you can't possibly adapt the same working ethics that you had when you were working in an office. One reason is you don't see your boss face to face. Example of this is when you have question and you don't ask right away the boss would assume you're working okay and you don't have a problem on the task. When you're working in an office your boss can see you or your office mates can see you and would notice you're having a problem with what you're doing.

Second of all, you're working alone and the temptation of watching TV or sleeping instead of working is high. A good VA does not watch nor sleep during work time because at the end of the day you have to have a report or a list of tasks you've done because if you don't then your boss would tell you're fired and he's not paying you to do nothing. Unlike working in an office your boss can basically see you right away if you're working or not.

Third of all, you have to be open to feed backs. Often, feed backs in the virtual world is given to you every day or twice or thrice a day.

Fourth of all, you don't have to be good at something as long as you keep teaching yourself and be up to date with softwares.

And lastly, you need to have a good internet connection.

Talk soon,

Hunee

PS. I will be writing more on this topic. Feel free to leave a message or question/s

How do I get to earn extra

I am always encouraging friends to try to earn extra because I just do not want to hear, "my salary is not enough for my family or even to me." I am tired hearing that over and over again.

We all have 24hours to do things. You are suppose to sleep for 8 hours but since we have TV at home, you only sleep for 5-6 hours a night. Office hours should only be 9hours, including the 1 hour lunch break. What is left is basically for household chores, TV, computer, talking and sending text messages, and probably sitting on that sofa doing nothing. Those stuff are all for 9 hours.

If you simply convert 3-4 hours of that to something productive you could have earned an additional 2,000 for the whole month or even more.

My typical day would be, going to the office at 7:30am and work till 6:00 pm. Before I close my computer I would check on my blog and my online proposals for transcription work. I did get to invest time to learn how to start blogging. I did get to invest my time and money to learn the basic in transcription and I invested time again to find clients. I would have 3-4 hours of sleep from Mondays to Saturdays. Sundays for me is lazy day.

I was able to turn my expense into something self liquidating. For example, I am using my internet access to earn extra so I can pay my internet. Don't you just love it when your monthly salary is all for savings and you.

If I was able to do it so can you.

Quote: "Your Sex Life is Boring."

I have been blogging for a year and a half now. I have been active with social networking sites. My daily routine would be waking up in the morning checking what happened in the last hours that I have been asleep. When I get to the office I still get online and check again and I would be online for all day long. When I get home I still do come online and check again. Some find it boring and a friend of mine describe my life by comparing it to sex. He said, "Your sex life is boring. If you were not laid last night you are contented with reading sex blogs." I was just like, "Wow! People from other country are really comfortable talking about sex especially with the opposite sex."

The diversity of people from different culture, from different homes, from different believes are meeting online to unintentionaly mention or discuss topics of who they are, how they are brought up and what they believe and etc.

I can be offended with that reaction from someone whom I did not meet personally but in my mind, it was my decision to be online, to create an online profile might as well be open to the fact that for others to say what they need to say and want to say for they thought it was not offensive or insulting. In the long run, I had a better appreciation towards others and how to care about others as well. I have noticed their wanting to be heard but not really insinuating that there response should be done or is correct. It was a simple reaction that needed to be heard. And I, as the one who heard it from him, needed to open my mind to a bigger thinking that life is not described as to what I want it to be. Life is not me but me with others whether online or offline.

It must be easy for my friend to describe my life in terms of "SEX" for one, he is a guy. Second, he must be comfortable with sex than anything else. And it must be the first thing that come out from his mind. Whatever are his reasons are, I should not take it as offensive or insulting. There are two things I do keep in mind that when you are online, you attract friends ,and second you attract enemies.

He made a last comment though because he knew I might be offended. He said, "I may have described it to sex, it does not mean that I am trying to imply that you should have sex because it is fun. No doubt sex is fun and sex is done by two responsible person."

It was pretty obvious that after describing it to sex he was immediately aware that he was not talking to someone like his kind. That he was talking to me. And I just blush.

Skype Conversations

[7/22/2008 5:29:44 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: i need to go back to school and learn to spell
[7/22/2008 5:51:16 PM] H says: why?
[7/22/2008 5:51:46 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: so i can spell
[7/22/2008 5:53:52 PM] H says: what for?
[7/22/2008 5:54:28 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: so when i want to type something i can spell it
[7/22/2008 5:55:09 PM] H says: ok
[7/22/2008 5:55:37 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: there alot of words i can't spell
[7/22/2008 5:55:59 PM] H says: i really don't understand why you need that kind of ability
[7/22/2008 5:56:26 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: we do a lot of email here at work
[7/22/2008 5:59:00 PM] H says: so you want to put spell on your emails
[7/22/2008 5:59:04 PM] H says: i see...
[7/22/2008 5:59:18 PM] H says: when you do know how to create a spell don't ever email me LOL
[7/22/2008 5:59:55 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: you like it when i mess up
[7/22/2008 6:00:38 PM] H says: ha??
[7/22/2008 6:00:44 PM] H says: did you?
[7/22/2008 6:00:59 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: i do all the time
[7/22/2008 6:01:50 PM] H says: you didn't... you just acted on something quick in which you didn't use your head
[7/22/2008 6:02:09 PM] H says: so turned out to be a mistake later...
[7/22/2008 6:02:31 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: thats happens alot to
[7/22/2008 6:03:44 PM] H says: every human do that..
[7/22/2008 6:03:59 PM] H says: water for me first... can't reach the glasses
[7/22/2008 6:04:28 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: ok
[7/22/2008 6:18:58 PM] H says: broke 5 glasses today and they all come rushing
[7/22/2008 6:19:40 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: that means they care about there glasses lol
[7/22/2008 6:21:46 PM] H says: yeah... they do
[7/22/2008 6:22:00 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: i was joking
[7/22/2008 6:24:35 PM] H says: ok
[7/22/2008 6:24:51 PM] H says: i like breaking things
[7/22/2008 6:24:57 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: i see you got a nice pic of your self today
[7/22/2008 6:25:03 PM] H says: im taking that out
[7/22/2008 6:25:09 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: why
[7/22/2008 6:25:18 PM] H says: just shy
[7/22/2008 6:25:19 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: don't be a brat
[7/22/2008 6:27:13 PM] H says: thanks for calling me a brat...im proud to be one
[7/22/2008 6:31:50 PM] JD (CSR/TSR) says: in that case im glad to have called you one lol

This is an example of a conversation wherein in a computer mediated conversation the other party thought that "learn how to spell" means like magic spells, and the other party really meant learn how to spell a word.

Makes everyone human and nothing in this world is perfect.

The Many Uses of Twitter: Part 2

So, I've been telling Hunee I'd write this sequel for a week or so now, but I've been struggling over what deserves to be covered. I'm gonna lay out a few more tools for enhancing your Twitter experience.

Thanks to Twitter's open API, lots of great people have made lots of great tools for it. In part one I mentioned TweetStats, and the creator of that wonderful site, also has an excellent way to clear out your DM inbox. Make sure you show some love and follow @dacort for his excellent contributions to the way we use twitter.

Twitter Karma and My Tweeple are both excellent sites for managing your followers/followees. As you gain more followers, it becoms difficult to do this on the twitter site. These sites make it much easier.

Tweetbar is a cool little plug-in for FireFox that lets you tweet right from the address bar in your browser.

Lastly, take a look at Twittervision. It's a very cool little play thing that can show you where in the world all your favorite Twits are tweeting from.

One more thing. Do you have a good idea for a Twitter App? You can learn more about working with the Twitter API here.

I hope you've learned some things about Twitter today. Please, if I have left out any of your favorite tools or apps in this series of posts, let Hunee know, and maybe I'll be back ;)

Much Love.
Jack Lhasa
I Listen.
I Travel.

Jack Lhasa is a travel writer, currently in Southern California. He maintains several blogs, a dozen or more social networks, and writes for cash too. Damn, he's everywhere. ;)