Last May, Lisa Rehmer decided she had outgrown 20 years of working in corporate administrative jobs.
“One day, on my way home, something about work had bothered me to the point that I knew it was time. I went home and said to my husband ‘this is it.’ He said ‘what?’ But then he quickly supported me 150 percent,” Rehmer said.
After deciding “it was time to check her fear at the door,” Rehmer began researching the virtual assistant industry. She found it to be a flexible and growing line of work, perfect for people like herself who dream of jobs that are not restricted by location or a 9-5 work week. Rehmer decided to roll out her folding table in her basement and set up the home phone and personal computer. Eventually, she became the CEO and founder of LR Virtual Resources LLC.
Including payroll, she said she spent about $150,000 getting her business off the ground. By taking full advantage of her business contacts and local chamber of commerce databases, she placed her first virtual assistant in a bookkeeping job within five months of launching her business.
“We’re not a temp agency. We’re an arrangement where you get the same person whenever you need them and a backup to fill a gap (if there is one). Maternity leave, is a great example. That’s the difference between us and a temp agency,” Rehmer said.
Today, Rehmer’s business has grown to include a satellite office in Delray Beach, Fla., and “a real office building” in Farmington. She has nine employees, nine virtual assistants and is working with 15 clients ranging from CEOs to event planners.
Rehmer said she designed her company so virtual assistants can work at home and service clients, but can “be at that soccer game when they want to go.”
To her surprise, Rehmer said Delray Beach turned out to be a “great place to have a virtual assistant company because it’s very heavy in construction and they don’t necessarily have bookkeepers and accountants (on staff).”
According to Rehmer, virtual assistants she works with are paid up to $35 an hour. The average company she works with has a total cost savings of about 35-40 percent by not having to hire a full time person for in-office work.
“Overhead cost savings is the number one drive for companies. It allows them the opportunity to use somebody for less than 40 hours. If they’re a small company and they have a need for a project, it’s great, or if they don’t want to pay for the space expense, equipment, taxes, benefits, vacation time, sick time, or water cooler chats.
“There’s a fair amount of lost time on productivity of employers in big companies. They lose sight of that and don’t get their money’s worth,” she said.
Rehmer guarantees her clients a trained “backup virtual assistant” if the current one is on vacation or sick. She says her virtual assistant’s offices have sophisticated phone systems so clients’ customers don’t know that the virtual assistants don’t work for the company.
“Our caller ID says the company’s name. Customers don’t even know we’re not in the office,” she said, noting she spent “a fair amount of money” to ensure she had this capability.
In her quest for new business, Rehmer does sometimes find that not all companies understand what a virtual assistant is. She says some “gatekeepers” she speaks to block her out from fear that hiring a virtual assistant will mean they’re out of a job.
“Business owners may be interested, but a person has put up a wall out of fear. In those cases, those owners lose out on an opportunity,” she said.
Rehmer says she is ahead of her three- to five-year business plan right now. She anticipates opening a satellite office in Tennessee, where she says there is a vast need for virtual assistant support in the music industry.
Joanna Smiley, a Hartford area freelancer, writes the weekly Local Insight column for The Hartford Business Journal.
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