When I started my Virtual Assistant business I researched it day and night, luckily at the time I was living alone and didn’t have anyone wanting my attention (apart from the cat).  So I spent a lot of time online looking at how I could start my business and to get lots of advice and tips, ideally for free.

I wasn’t disappointed, the longer I looked the more resources I found, and even now nearly 6 months down the line I still come across some great websites that I wish I had found when I started.

As an avid reader in my spare time I immediately went to Amazon to see if there were any books that were aimed at virtual assistants, there weren’t many, but one book did stand out and I immediately put an order in, so we start the list with this book.

Please note within my list there may contain affiliate links for products or services I recommend.  This means I will receive a commission if you choose to purchase something I’ve shared with you.

The Virtual Assistant Handbook: Insider Secrets for Starting and Running Your Own Profitable VA Business by Nadine Hill – I really enjoyed this book, I read it from cover to cover as soon I received it, it was so easy to read and made me think about things I had overlooked about starting as a virtual assistant.  I recently read another book of Nadine’s, I Don’t Have Time To Write – Time Taming Tips for Writers, Bloggers & Infopreneurs.

Websites

Virtual Assistant Forums - Here you’ll find other virtual assistants, it’s a great forum and you can ask anything you need to know.  You can connect your blog and Twitter account which shows on all your posts.  They also have a really great deal on an eBook Become A Virtual Assistant - you may have seen the link to this on my website, just take a look at the contents and you’ll see that it covers everything you need to start your successful business.

Another website to join is IVAA – International Virtual Assistants Association.  This was one of the first websites I joined, you can see the IVAA badge on my website which means I am a full member.  There are lots of benefits of being a member, I hope you’ll go and take a look.

Virtual Assistantville - is first and foremost a directory, so you join and list your virtual assistant business with them.  They also provide other benefits, such as blog and article posts and an RFP (Request for Proposal) service.

Another directory for virtual assistants is BeMyVA - they have lots of membership benefits, you can submit your own articles and they have a featured VA service which then gets advertised in their newsletters and on their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Other websites you should take a look at are Society of Virtual Assistant’s, intelligentVA, VA Success Group and Step It Up VA Coaching, this last one has a free teleseminar running next week which I have signed up to, click this link to register.

Twitter Lists

If you’re on Twitter, it’s a great idea to subscribe to some lists, or even start  some of your own (watch out for Twitter Lists as a blog topic in the next few weeks).  Some of the lists related to VA’s are my list which follows all the virtual assistants who I follow.  Lee Drozak who is a member of the Virtual Assistant Forums above also has a list of VA’s in her circle.

Virtual Assistantville have also created a list on Twitter with nearly 500 VA’s, useful if you want to check out what others are doing.

If you’re an aspiring virtual assistant, or a fully established one and have other resources to share, I’d love for you to leave a comment with the information.