When I decided to move my home based office services business
forward to the now popular Virtual Assistance niche, I saw a lot
of advice both for and against specializing my services.

Knowing where my strengths lie and where I have NO expertise,
I decided that specializing was the way for ME, personally, to go.

It is like when I worked in the *real world* as a Kelly Girl, which was a huge employer
for temporary office help, I only accepted assignments for file clerk, receptionist or general office. I could DO many office tasks but either did not feel qualified or frankly, did not WANT to perform several of the jobs that were offered to me.

I turned down several office management job offers although I was qualified TO do
the jobs – I instead opted to train someone else to fulfill the duties for those jobs.
I did not want the responsibility of running the offices and preferred to have set tasks
to perform daily as apposed to being in charge of staff and the stress that I saw coming with those jobs.

This said, there are Virtual Assistance services that I cannot do or do not want to do.
So I am concentrating on my strengths, which are:

Proofreading

Editing

Transcription

Social Network Assistance

Research

Because each client is as different in his or her way of wanting things done
as each office is, I am constantly in training as I work with each person.
Since I love to work and love to learn, this is a great business for me to be in.

Kind of like when I had temp jobs with Kelly Girl, I am responsible to get my portion
of the work done but ultimately NOT having the headaches and stresses of the business owner. Of course, I do still have those with my OWN businesses, but that is another story.

Since I know that most of us are feeling this money crisis, to both ensure that I can work steadily and to help the budget of potential clients, I have come up with my retainer plans. This can be of huge benefit to those who need my services but cannot afford, or do not want to spend, my hourly fees. I have beaten every other reputable deal I could find
in my specialties to achieve this.

Here are my Retainer Services – Paid in advance ONLY:

* Proofreading, Editing, Social Networking Assistance, Help Desk Assistance,
Email Account Maintenance, Blog Posting, Web Page updates, Submitting your Blogs
& Articles to directories, etc. can be retained weekly or monthly to save you money
and assure continual work flow.

* Ten hours per week $15 per hour = $150

* Fifteen hours per week $13 per hour = $199

* Twenty hours per week $11 per hour = $220

* You can use your entire retainer fee on one project
OR mix them up in any categories as needed

* Monthly retainer of at least 20 hours per week, EVERY week,
booked and paid in advance for a month at a time = $10 per hour.
Limited to TWO monthly retainer clients.

Click here to schedule a retainer project.

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

I love to network and use social media but there are some sides of doing so that, for me, are more WORK than they are enjoyment. Most of the avid social networkers I come across agree.

I have a couple of clients that I assist with the “chores” facet of their networking so that they can concentrate on the FUN sides, and I know I would love to someday have a helper to do my “busy work” for me as well.

I love to do my own searches for new people to connect and interact with but a lot of the people I am in contact with do not like this stage of the game. To me, the biggest chore is weeding through new connection requests to make sure the person is someone I would want to be associated with, have something in common with or at least has something interesting to discuss now and then.

I have helped others set up their social media personas, find like-minded people for them to connect and interact with, written or at least edited their profile descriptions and weeded through their new connection requests.

I have both a personal Facebook presence and a professional or business one. Some people tend to “friend” every person that asks so that they have a huge friend list. This is probably fine for personal social gossiping, sharing fun stuff, etc. but for my business, I feel that I need to concentrate on people who are my peers or in an industry compatible with mine or that might someday either need my services or at least know someone some day who does.

I also have an account on Linkedin for the sole purpose of connecting with other business people and getting and sharing tips, advice and resources with my peers.

My most fun, and most USED social media platform is Twitter. I am quite active on twitter and have some really interactive connections there. I have also made some real friendships from being on Twitter AND have gotten the bulk of my clients and referrals from my connections with this great platform.

If you love social networking but want to concentrate on the fun, interactive and connecting side and need someone else to manage and perform your maintenance for you, please keep me in mind.

I can set up your account for you, search for people in YOUR designated criteria, weed through your connection requests for the people you DO want to be involved with, send them a personal hello and welcome so that you do not have to use an autoresponder or even send them NO hello and welcome message and pretty much anything else to make your social networking experience a more fun and/or rewarding one.

Discover 350 Powerful Social Media Tactics You Can Implement To Your Business Right Now For More Traffic, Leads & Sales …

for only $9.97!

In this unique package, you’ll receive a set 7 reports in 7 different topics, all targeted to helping YOU take advantage of high traffic social media sites.

I know full well where my strengths and talents lie … with my proofreading, editing, transcription service, social networking on twitter, facebook and LinkedIn and selling digital products via my Software Superstore PLUS being the editor of my ezine, Rim Digest for marketers and small business owners. This is not a HUGE list of talents or strengths, but these are MINE.

By specializing so tightly with my Virtual Assistance Business , I miss a lot of income and learning opportunities, so decided to branch out a bit and learn some new skills to add to my portfolio. Needless to say, I got way over my head – was WAY out of my comfort zone, was miserable and starting to feel, to be honest, like a total FAILURE and/or loser. Then it hit me, no one can be expert at everything AND why on earth was I trying to be?!

Hence the firing of myself from what could have been a really great financial gain down the line but was seriously causing me stress and a huge well of unbelief in myself. I am confident in what I do best and need to focus on those things and so, though I am still wanting to learn as much as I can in this ever-changing wonderful world of internet marketing and marketing my services, I am not going to worry about trying to do more than I comfortably CAN do.

With that in mind, I signed up for a course to become a Virtual Event Specialist and to Get Certified in this specialty because it really appeals to me and is something more in the line of what I am already doing.

Video courtesy of Craig Cannings, the owner of the VA Classroom, about Virtual Event Services and why they are needed.

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