I’m a VA (Virtual Assistant) by day and an artist/blogger by night.
I can help you or your small business get things done that you don’t have the time to do. Marketing, newsletters, post blogs, email campaigns, maintain social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other things as needed.
I live in the northern California wine country. Over the years I’ve been involved in a variety of work environments from offices to retail, teaching, horse boarding, personal assistant, marketing, customer service and small events/conferences.
I review local theater plays and books (see Blog & Reviews) and create simple WordPress sites for friends. A sample of some of the sites I’ve done besides my own are: www.3Hairazors.com, www.MurpheyRemodel.com, www.Need2VentNow.com. I also make jewelry.
Reviews:
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“I have had the pleasure of having Kim Murphey assist me with updates on my website as well as virtual administrative duties. She has a very good grasp of WordPress, gets to my tasks very quickly and is very easy to work with. Though I haven’t used her to assist with social media promotions, I know she is very familiar with this new technology as we have worked together as colleagues in the past.” “She is great to work with and does exactly what she is asked to do and more. I wish I could hire her full time.” Bonnie Koagedal, Realtor at Turning Point Real Estate |
What is a VA?
VA stands for Virtual Assistant – A self-employed entrepreneur who provides administrative, technical, and creative assistance to clients from a home office. Virtual assistants are independent contractors, not employees. Clients pay for 100% productive work, and can work with Virtual Assistants individually or in multi-VA firms to meet their exact needs.
Virtual Assistants generally charge by the hour. Rates vary greatly depending upon the expertise required. You should expect to pay more, of course, for specialized services such as Web site design.
At first glance you may have sticker shock, but let’s look at the “real cost” of employees: statistics show that employees actually cost 2 to 2 1/2 times their rate of pay when one factors in cost of:
- employment taxes
- insurance
- base salary
- benefits
- office space
- equipment
And don’t forget the variables that are more difficult to price:
- time lost on socializing
- vacation/sick time
- personality conflicts
- recruitment
- training
In the long run you’ll pay a lot less for a virtual assistant who takes pride in their work because they are not only working for you, they are working for themselves. You could hire a VA for as little as one hour a week. Could you hire an employee for that?
Contracting out to a VA is a cost effective way to handle those office administrative tasks. Communication with your VA is done through email, internet, phone, fax, and VOIP services such as Skype. Professionals in this field work by contract. In many instances they never meet face to face but work happily together for years. Typical VA jobs include executive assistant, legal assistant, paralegal, real estate assistant, marketing assistant, information technology assistant, web site design, bookkeeping, social media, creative writer, document/manuscript editors, customer service, scheduling , et cetera.
For more information on Virtual Assistants:
International Virtual Assistant Association (IVAA)
AssistU
