10 Brilliant Virtual Assistants!

The Digital Women Awards takes place every year to celebrate the work women are doing through digital.

The Digital Women Virtual Assistant of The Year recognises and celebrates those who work in a digital support role for their clients. VA’s pick up many of the administrative, organisational and marketing tasks remotely to an exceptionally high standard and have the ability to organise and communicate effectively.

Here are our brilliant women, your Virtual Assistant of the Year 2022 Finalists:

Name: Tina Lunn

When Tina launched her business, she really wanted to offer something different to the VA market. She did plenty of market research when she set up the business and she realised there was a gap in the market for what she wanted to offer to clients.

Tina realised that she didn’t just want to offer fixed deliverables in exchange for payment, or to just offer more traditional types of admin support. She wanted to introduce an element of consultancy, business advice and partnership, forming long-term relationships with my clients to become their sounding board and daily dose of support as well as to help generate new business ideas, recommend systems and processes, encourage them to become more digitalised, and as one client always remarks, to be the business partner they can have fun with and enjoy inside jokes with – especially important when they work alone!

Name: Lyndsey Lee

Last year Lyndsey grew her businesses turnover by 31% overall and one of her greatest achievements was winning last year’s Digital Women VA of the Year 2021 Award!

Lyndsey has directly helped one of her clients increase her turnover in her coaching business from £60k last year to nearly double that this year. She has personally implemented new systems into her business, been the front facing person to all of her clients, planned workshops and events and run her own masterclasses on tech and systems to her coaching clients to offer her programme that something extra.

Name: Elspeth Dunn

Elspeth says her potential for growth is linked to her family, the aim for starting her own business was so she was able to rebalance her workstyle, ultimately to care for her son when he was young but without losing employability. As he grows, so does Dunn Virtually.

The standout quality of Dunn Virtually is to deliver a high-quality service in a highly dynamic environment for businesspeople. Elspeth is proud to have recently won the SME News South East England VA of 2021 award and CorporateLiveWire Global Awards 2021/22 Virtual Assistant of the Year United Kingdom, and wishes to expand on these. Elspeth is incredibly delighted with the success Dunn Virtually has achieved so far, with testimonials from happy clients and returning clients.

Name: Ann Read

Ann follows a comprehensive digital strategy in her business from the moment she receives a new client enquiry to onboarding clients, right through to keeping them informed of tasks in progress and then when completed. Ann has a 100% success rate in converting a new enquiry into a signed client following her Zoom Discovery Calls, which clients can book easily through her website and social media profiles. She believes that this emphasises that although she works virtually and digitally, this is not a barrier to a client’s confidence in her ability.

The PA Portal will be 5 in June, and Ann is designing a new WordPress website for the business, including new branded photography. The new website will better showcase her passion, professionalism and proactive approach to life and business.

Name: Michelle Stead

The relationships that Michelle has built with clients are at the core of her business and she values their businesses as much as my own. The past year has been a year of growth for Michelle and she had got to a point in my business where she needed to ‘level up’. She has always been creative and she decided to start studying for a Degree in Graphic Design with the Open College of the Arts.

The one thing that really lights Michelle up in her business is designing and she didn’t feel that the branding she had when she started her business 4 years ago was reflective of the business any longer, or the direction she wanted to go in.

Michelle worked with a coach to work out a strategy for growing the business, continue supporting amazing women and to incorporate her creativity and Shell Creative VA was born in January, with a complete brand makeover.

Name: Katie Parker

Parker PA enables business owners to hand over the small stuff, so they can get back to growing their businesses.

It is important to Katie to match brilliant Virtual PAs based on client requirements. She only works with VAs who share the same values and experience as her, and have the right skills needed to enhance businesses. Each hold Professional Indemnity insurance and are registered with the ICO (Information Commissioners Office).

Name: Rosemarie St. Louis

Rosemarie recently helped 2 business scale from her being their only freelancer to both clients expanding to having a team of 7-10+ freelancers and with one of them also adding an actual ‘employee’. She realised that with her help, with her being there for them on a regular, daily basis, handling a range of tasks with a wide-ranging skillset and being reliable, she had enabled both these clients to scale and grow their businesses.

It all made Rosemarie realise the value that her “little VA business” can bring to small business owners. Her VA business has been going now for 3.5 years and has now grown to include four Associate VAs.

Name: Kate Gannon

Kate’s launch marketing was so successful that she hit her business-viability target per month within six months. From September 2020, she has been at full capacity.

Being at full capacity but still wanting to drive revenue forward, Kate created a digital product in 2020 as a form of passive income. Using her industry knowledge into what would make a hugely useful and timesaving resource for her target market, she created ‘The Columns Companion” – a database of regular national newspaper columns and sections. This went down a storm being purchased by numerous customers and was designed with updates/variations in mind for additional future income opportunities.

Name: Erin Buck

Erin recently decided to expand in a different direction which was the start of her 1:1 sessions. She teaches and helps other small businesses to use Social Media Marketing productively to help their businesses to reach the goals they have set. Erin is now booked a month in advance for the sessions.

Her clients are happy with her work, ethos and involvement in their businesses. Erin continually pushes forward, improve herself and her business as well as help others that may not have the confidence in this digital time, to begin with, to achieve as well.

Name: Karen Brooks

Pellings has been trading now almost 8 years and August 2016 was when Karen decided to put all her energies into growing her business and step away from employment. Since 2018 she began working with associate VA’s, which helped them, helped her and helped her clients.

Pellings has an outstanding reputation and Karen is proud that they have many long standing clients and many who come back to them when they need projects completing. Some of these adhoc clients have become more frequent now due to the expansion of their clients’ businesses.

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