Digital Marketplace

So far, we have been discussing all the skills a virtual assistant must possess and the responsibilities they would carry out. Conducting virtual meetings is one such responsibility. As a VA, you may need to onboard a new client, collaborate with team members, or present project updates; therefore, you must learn to conduct virtual meetings like a pro using tools like Zoom, Airmeet, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams.  Why Do Virtual Meetings Matter? In the freelance world, most of your collaborators will be virtual, so you need the ability to run smooth, efficient online meetings.  Getting your meeting going smoothly indicates your organizational skills and professionalism.  Poorly managed meetings are a waste of time and often leave clients in confusion and frustrated.  Imagine these 2 scenarios: Freelancer A :  Starts the meeting late. Doesn’t maintain order and decorum, so people talk over each other, which leads to no clear decisions being made before the mee...

The benefits of freelancing include flexibility, freedom, and the ability to work when and how you choose. But let's face it: balancing multiple clients, meeting deadlines, and dealing with uncertain income can be stressful. Your long-term success in freelancing requires being able to manage stress effectively.  TIPS ON MANAGING STRESS AS A FREELANCER 1. ORGANIZE! I cannot emphasize this point enough. When your schedule is all over the place and a cluttered mess in your head, it becomes challenging to take charge of all your tasks and responsibilities effectively. And this can result in a lot of stress. Also, don’t try to handle too many clients at a time so that you can give yourself time to breathe and deliver your best to your clients. Being well-organized makes your job easier too. Remember that you are an independent contractor, you determine how you want your workflow to be, so it’s up to you to organize everything.  2. An important part of self-care is a regular workout...

  For freelancers in administrative roles such as executive assistants, or project managers, your job may include data entry into spreadsheets, and creating reports using tools like Excel and Google Sheets. It's important to understand and be able to use some Excel functions that manipulate data to improve your efficiency and speed. Apart from the mathematical functions, some Excel functions I've found really handy are the Text functions. These functions are powerful tools designed to manipulate and format text strings within your spreadsheets. They save you time and effort by automating tasks that would otherwise require manual editing. In this article, I'll discuss some of the most commonly used Excel text functions that make data manipulation a breeze! CONCATENATE The first function we'll look at, and one of my favorites is the  CONCATENATE function. Concatenate joins two or more text strings into one string. The Syntax for Concatenate: =CONCATENATE(A2, " "...