Home-based virtual staffs

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Ann Harrell has run the offices for a couple of day care centers, business owners and a medical consultant. The companies are located from Annapolis to Michigan, but Mrs. Harrell is firmly planted in her home office in Bowie.

Mrs. Harrell is a certified virtual assistant. After a corporate downsizing a few years ago, she took her 15 years of experience and started her own business.

She has contracts with two clients to do services such as bookkeeping, newsletter writing, marketing and database management. She works around the schedule of her four sons, whom she home-schools.

"I wanted to do the thing I loved the most while being with the people I loved the most," Mrs. Harrell says.

As more small companies are being run from a laptop and a mobile office, it is a natural progression for a support staff to be home-based as well. Advances in technology have made it possible, for instance, for a consultant in Colorado to have a support staff in Silver Spring.

Virtual assistants provide a range of services, from basic clerical work to correspondence to organizing and implementing systems. Most come to the industry from corporate America, where they have learned the necessary computer programs and gained skills that naturally transfer to being a virtual assistant, says Susan Kramer, an Illinois-based virtual assistant and marketing director for the International Virtual Assistants Association (IVAA).

The IVAA, which began in 2001, offers several certifications for virtual assistants. Through home study and tests, virtual assistants can earn a certified virtual assistant designation as well as designations in ethics or the real estate business.

Mrs. Harrell is certified in all three areas and says it gives her an extra professional edge when contracting for jobs.

"One of my first clients said he hired me because of the certifications," Mrs. Harrell says. "He was concerned about having a home-based administrator."

Many people earn their extra edge in the business by taking a virtual assistant course before starting their business. Stacy Brice, a former virtual assistant from Cockeysville, Md., started AssistU (www.assistU.com) 10 years ago.