There are countless ways a Virtual Assistant can be of service to you and your business. Just like an assistant in a brick and mortar office, your own
Virtual Assistant can be one of the best investments you can make FOR both your business and your own peace of mind!

Among the thousands, I am sure, services a Virtual Assistant can perform, here are just a few to give you an example and help you decide if a Virtual Assistant is right for you.

Although, of course, your Virtual Assistant can be either male or female, to keep from saying “he or she” and “his or her” for every task, I will write this in the SHE and HER mode.

Your own Virtual Assistant can:

Respond to customer e-mails and phone calls

Help out with some facets of your social networking
so you can spend more time SOCIALIZING!

Schedule appointments and interviews

Do the transcriptions of your interviews, podcasts, videos, etc.

Handle your Bookkeeping chores; for example:

invoicing clients, receiving and paying bills, balancing checkbooks
and reconciling bank statements, tracking expenses and tax records,etc.

Perform internet research for various facets of your business

Plan your travel and make necessary arrangements

Maintain your ezine and customer mailing lists, manage your ezine ad sales,
do research FOR ezine content and even write and/or compile it for you

Maintain your website, for example edit when needed, make changes and updates

take customer orders, create sales reports, ship orders and products

Submit your articles to other publishers and article sites

Update, edit and maintain your blog and research content for you to use on it

Proofread your documents, advertisements, web pages, etc.

Place advertisements in print or e-publications and on websites.

Format eBooks, create PDF files, send out printing jobs or do them herself.

Perform Data Back Ups so that all of your important information,
downloads, documents, etc. are safely duplicated in case of data loss

Research, list and maintain products for your online store, eBay store, etc.

( which is one of the duties MY own Virtual Assistant will have when I get one! )

and just about anything else your own in office assistant could do for you,
without the added expenses of a fully stocked office on your premises,
insurance and other benefits you would have to provide FOR
an in house employee AND she can keep the paperwork
overload in HER office instead of yours!

There are many ways you can unintentionally lose information on a computer. A child playing the keyboard like a piano, a power surge, lightning, floods. And sometimes equipment just fails.

If you regularly make backup copies of your files and keep them in a separate place, you can get some, if not all, of your information back in the event something happens to the originals on your computer.

Deciding what to back up is highly personal. Anything you cannot replace easily should be at the top of your list. Before you get started, make a checklist of files to back up. This will help you determine what to back up, and also give you a reference list in the event you need to retrieve a backed-up file. Here are some file suggestions to get you started:

• Bank records and other financial information
• Digital photographs
• Software you purchased and downloaded from the Internet
• Music you purchased and downloaded from the Internet
• Personal projects
• Your e-mail address book
• Your Microsoft Outlook calendar
• Your Internet Explorer bookmarks

If you haven’t already decided where you want to store your backup copies—external hard disk drive, CDs, DVDs, or some other storage format—and you want to know more about your options, you can read about the types of external storage available.
Check that out here .

After you’ve decided what you want to back up and where you’re going to back up, you’re ready to learn how to back up. Get that info by visiting here now.

* Note from Jan Tallent:

I am the Queen of lost data and know first-hand how devastating this can be! I have had a laptop struck by lightning, 8 years of downloads, info and documents destroyed by a virus the best virus checkers money can buy MISSED, accidentally overwritten files that should have been backed up and THEN updated, etc. and it is scary, confusing, humbling and ANNOYING to have this happen.

I have been a digital product junkie for going on ten years now and have over 100 cd’s of burned copies of those, plus at least monthly burn cd’s to have a safe copy of all of my documents, current work, etc. and highly recommend that you DO back up anything and everything that you cannot afford to lose.

thanks to MicroSoft for the great article!

Jan Tallent

P.S. Remember, one of the services I offer IS data back-up, not only of the assignments and projects I perform for you but also any you care to get TO me, via email or download or snail mail and can even keep a copy for emergencies if you like, after I send you your back up!