Welcome to the long-awaited first issue of
the Tallent Agency Gazzette!
Tomorrow, February 10, 2010 will be the TEN year anniversary
of my marketing ezine, Rim Digest ! I had not planned on being more than a temporary “fill-in” editor while I waited for the previous editor to find someone that knew what he or she was doing. Surprise – by the time I had filled in enough to know my way around finding content and putting an issue together, I was hooked. Apparently I DID have what it took AND must brag that I have had most of my subscribers from anywhere from five years to the entire time I have been the editor!
My idea for THIS ezine was to let those who were interested keep up with my progress changing over from an offline and online office services helper to a Virtual Assistant , which is the term used now for the very thing I have been doing for twelve years!
I am learning how to perform new duties every day and, frankly, loving almost every minute of it! I have some of the very best and fun clients in a wide-spread stream of categories. Each of my clients brings new insights, experiences and manners of doing each task I perform and I learn from working with each personality as much as I do from the jobs I do for him or her.
I am often asked why I decided to be a Virtual Assistant. The simple answer is that I am still doing the same tasks I was performing all along, but now there is a new term for this set of skills. When I first started the Tallent Agency, it was a desk top publishing business. I made business cards, fliers, brochures, etc. and also did resumes for the group of colleges 40 miles away. Someone suggested I take the business onto the Internet to find more potential clients as, frankly, I could not compete for those assignments once a big printing company / office supply store came to my small town.
I got caught up in Internet Marketing and then got addicted to Digital Products with Resell Rights , but still performed various office duties for offline and online businesses. Now I work solely for Internet Entrepreneurs and webmasters, bloggers, writers, etc.
My best friend, Sharon McPherson, who I met online 11 years ago and who has been here to see my kids and me four times, all the way from Florida, about 2,000 miles from Missouri, wanted to revamp my former Tallent Agency website, so she made this wordpress site for me! Check out Templates, Themes & Graphics , which is her latest addition to twelve years of Internet savvy and business success.
I decided to specialize, instead of trying to do all of the duties a general Virtual Assistant does, because, frankly #1: I am not skilled enough at some of the tasks a Virtual Assistant is asked to do and, #2: I do not LIKE to do a lot of those duties. My skills are with Proofreading , Editing and Posting to Blogs plus updating web pages for those who are too busy to do this themselves. Also, as I took a Computerized Medical Office Technology class to learn how to USE a computer 13 years ago, and one of the courses was for Medical Office Transcription , it made sense to add this task to my portfolio of office skills.
Being a Virtual Assistant requires very little in the way of supplies – I already have a desk top computer and a laptop – both of which I frequently upgrade or replace when necessary. I have a printer / copier, cable internet service, which I finally went wireless with so that I can use both computers online at the same time and my handy copy of Microsoft Word. These things and my own domains plus various mail programs are pretty much the other equipment requirements to do most of the jobs I have been hired to perform.
In the next issue I plan to describe some of the actual assignments I have had and will share some of the ups and downs and tips and tricks I am learning along the way.
Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing, proofreading and transcription assignments!
Jan Tallent
Tallent Agency Virtual Assistance
573-775-4520 jan@tallentagency.com
