What it’s like running a highly successful Virtual Assistant Agency
Running Africa’s largest (and most successful) Virtual Assistant Managed Agency is truly a vision come true for me! I wake up grateful every morning for the opportunity to connect people all across the globe. See where our name comes from? 🙂
Introduction to VA Connect’s CEO
Ola! I’m Karen Wessels, and I’m the very fortunate Founder, Owner and CEO of VA Connect, the only Virtual Assistant managed agency on the African continent. We’ll chat about why a managed agency is so important in a minute.
Let’s start at the beginning. I quit my job, completely out of character, early 2013 and embarked on a truly fulfilling and amazing entrepreneurial journey ever since. I started my business as a sideline project back in 2008, hence being the VA Godmother in South Africa, and was able to work full time as an entrepreneur from 2013. Believe me when I say that the market was very green back then with regards to outsourcing work and I’ve witnessed a remarkable spike in VA demand in the last 2 or 3 years.
Back in the day it was me, and I alone that did all the tasks, working from early morning, well to early morning. Fortunately very quickly I was enable to enlist the help of another highly organised person, who also happens to be my mom (bless!) and we’ve grown in size and reach every year, year on year.
Virtual Assistant Managed Agency
As the only Virtual Assistant Managed Agency on the African continent we take the managed services side completely out of your hands. What this means is, we are responsible for the hiring, firing, up-skilling and taking care of our Virtual Assistants. You get to hire wonderful outsourced help and we are there to ensure that we match the right Virtual Assistant to your account.
Remember, your VA becomes an integral part of your team, so it’s very important for us that you get on with your Virtual Assistant and that she continuously adds value to your business life. After all, that’s why we’re there.
We are so blessed to have highly experienced and truly lovely ladies on our team. We are surrounded by great people with a winning mind-set and a can-do attitude, which spills over onto our client’s side, making them super happy and not wanting to leave our services. In fact, some of our clients insist on paying their Virtual Assistants a bonus as a way of thanking them for all their hard work. See what I mean when I say we’re surrounded by greatness?
Where to from here for our Virtual Assistant Agency?
Outsourcing of work and remote workers are on the up and up. Because we are based in South Africa we are perfectly positioned for overseas clients.
Our Virtual Assistants are native English speaking, come from executive backgrounds and are renowned to be hard working and willing to go the extra mile. We are blessed to service clients across the globe, spanning from San Francisco to New York, from Dublin to London, from Oslo to Singapore, Australia and everything in between. How fortunate are we?
We see ourselves gaining loads more traction in the next 2 years with a view to becoming the world’s leading Virtual Assistant agency that connects people with people.
As the remote workforce increases in size and well, in force, the demand for Virtual Assistants and to be come Virtual Assistants will be on the rise.
Already so many corporate team members are working a few days a week from their home office, so it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a reality for more people out there.
With this increase in demand for outsourced help, we know that our team will double in size within the next 2 years. This is a very exciting phase of our business and we look forward to the growth potential.
Bringing it together
Starting out as a one man show and already heading towards the 20 strong team member mark, we know that our managed VA agency will grow from strength to strength. As we become recognised globally for our superb service, the ability to outsource work to South Africans becomes easier and more accessible.
We love what we do and we do what we love! Thanks to such an amazing team for making our agency such a success and a force to be reckoned with!
About the Author : As the co-founder of a globally recognized managed Virtual Assistant agency, Karen has been asked to speak about her experiences at many remote working events.
Karen has facilitated and hosted many sales masterclasses, workshops and training sessions to not only boost sales confidence however to also instill sales skills and tools that are personalised to each individual.
Karen is also a sought after speaker at Sales Conferences & Seminars, Secretarial Conferences & Symposiums and Entrepreneur Conferences & Workshops, where she engages her audience with story-like presentations of sales, outsourcing and business.
To learn more or to book Karen, visit her website.
