Francis van Wyk & Marietjie Steyn: 2010 Regional Business Award Winner

Business Business Award: VAimpact award is a standing ovation award for individual, association or Afrivan Ambassador chapters with strong business understanding and development with comparably business management in a country, region or location.

Business Regional Award:  

Full Names: Francis van Wyk & Marietjie Steyn

Business Name: Be Virtual Assistant Wise

Years in Business: 15 months

Business Website: http://www.be-virtual-assistant-wise.com &

Blog: http://www.be-virtual-assistant-wise.co.za

Location & Country: Vanderbijlpark, South Africa

Biography- Short Bio: Francis van Wyk & Marietjie Steyn are the leading experts for Virtual Assistants in South Africa and are creating a new, professional standard for the industry. Their organization, Be-Virtual-Assistant-Wise was founded in April 2009 and support aspiring and existing virtual assistants in South Africa with all aspects of establishing and growing a successful virtual assistant business. Their proven practices and professional support shorten the learning curve significantly for new Virtual Assistants and as such facilitate a smoother business start-up process. They have written an e-book on the process and their business success story was featured in 2 major South African women magazines.

They were also nominated to participate in the South African Business Women of the Year 2010 competition.
Francis has a masters degree in Business Administration (MBA), a masters degree in Science (M.sc) and 10 years extensive experience in how to run and manage a business successfully in terms of financial, operational, time and personnel management. When she had to leave her career in South Africa and relocated to Saudi Arabia in 2008, Francis researched the Virtual Assistant Industry and immediately saw an opportunity to help fellow South Africans to start and run their own successful virtual assistant businesses. When returning to South Africa in 2009, she shared her vision: “to increase the awareness of the virtual assistant industry in South Africa” with Marietjie Steyn.

Marietjie an ex Personal Assistant, Real Estate Business owner and Independent Bond Originator working from home for more than 15 years immediately realized that partnering with Francis can be the start of a new era for the virtual assistant industry in South Africa. Marietjie has extensive marketing experience and has successfully built an elaborate client-base for her business. She almost perfected the marketing tool of “Word of Mouth” advertising as most of her clients are referred to her by previous, satisfied customers.

Francis and Marietjie share a burning desire and passion to assist virtual assistants in South Africa to build successful and sustainable virtual businesses and combine their business and marketing experience in doing so.

Your current or past contribution to African VA industry

Be Virtual Assistant Wise opened its virtual doors in April 2009 and is in our eyes the only virtual assistant organization of its kind in South Africa. Be Virtual Assistant Wise addresses the virtual assistant industry from the perspective of the virtual assistant as well as from the business environment in South Africa. Our website is the “One Stop Information Hub” where virtual assistants obtain information on how to start and run a successful virtual assistant business and business owners learn how to make use of the services of a virtual assistant.

Our weekly e-zine, Insight reaches current as well as aspiring VAs who have subscribed to this free newsletter crammed with valuable information and articles about the industry and supporting articles to run a VA business.

Why do you think you deserve the Above & Beyond Award

We deserve the Above & Beyond Award because we are the only organization in South Africa that approaches the virtual assistant industry from two perspectives. We support virtual assistants and educate them on the standards of running a professional services business and we inform and educate the business community in South Africa about the virtual assistant industry and how to make use of the enhanced benefits of outsourcing non-core activities to virtual assistants.

Furthermore, we provide free, one-on one coaching to our premium members ensuring that they are equipped with the knowledge to make a professional stand in the world of virtual assistance.

Why do you think you deserve the Regional Award

Be Virtual Assistant Wise is a professional Virtual Assistant organization with the objective to grow the virtual assistant industry in its entirety in South Africa. We are the leaders in the Virtual Assistant Industry in South Africa because we ensure that BVAW-member Virtual Assistants and aspiring Virtual Assistants are equipped with business contracts that are endorsed by the South African Legal System.

We furthermore wrote an e-book “Jumpstart Your Virtual Assistant Business” jam packed with all the information needed, from making the decision to business planning, marketing and the daily operations involved in running a successful business. By incorporating 15 years of business experience and 6 months of intensive research into Jumpstart, this is a South African based blueprint to starting a virtual assistant business.

Why do you think you deserve the Achievement Award

We deserve the Achievement Award because in the short period of 15 months we accomplished the following:

Both our websites http://www.be-virtual-assistant-wise.com & http://www.be-virtual-assistant-wise.co.za feature within the Google top ten results for a number of virtual assistant related keywords.

· We grew our members from 0 in July 2009 to 77 active members and 135 forum members.

· We grew our newsletter subscribers from 0 to 210 in the same period.

· We received a number of request for proposals from South African business owners via the system on our website indicating that the business community in South Africa is slowly warming up to the concept of virtual assistance.

· These RFPs furthermore provide our paid members with additional work opportunities.

· One of our members used our professional proposal documentation to secure a huge contract for delivering virtual assistant and concierge services to international clients visiting SA during the 2010 FIFA world cup. Thus indicating that our documentation as well as our one-on-one coaching program compare to international standards.

· The success story of Be Virtual Assistant Wise already featured in 2 leading South African Women’s Magazines. This brought widespread awareness and publicity to grow the industry in South Africa.

· Although only one year in business, the founders of Be Virtual Assistant Wise were nominated to participate in the Business Women of the Year 2010 competition.

How do you balance work and home life?

The corporate and business experience of previous careers schooled us in how to balance work and home life.

The matter of the fact is that it’s a delicate balancing act to ensure that you have time for your family while at the same time running a successful business from home. All role players in our households were involved in setting up a plan that sets boundaries effectively in order to stay focused and productive without neglecting our spouses and children. We focus to stick to the plan and to “BE” in the moment, whether it is at work or with the family.

When we are working we are highly skilled professionals and when we are playing we are the consummate parent and spouse. The key is to stay in the moment and to focus on what you’re doing right now.

What is your personal inspirational message to Virtual Assistants in Africa?

Our message to Virtual Assistants in Africa is to never give up on their dreams. It took South Africa more than 16 years of planning and taking action, before they were able to host the biggest sporting event in Africa the 2010 FIFA world cup. Although Virtual Assistance is still in its infancy in Africa, Virtual Assistants should “keep their eye on the ball”, persevere, do their planning, invest in themselves, put their plans into action, apply what they’ve learned and take it one step at a time in order to grow their businesses. We are positive that Africa with its diversity can become a leader in the Virtual Assistant Industry.
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Francis van Wyk & Marietjie Steyn Acceptance Speech for Regional Business Award

” Wow, what can one say?

When we were nominated by African Virtual Assistants Network (Afrivan) for the Above and Beyond, Regional and Achievement Awards we were delighted and speechless.  Being in business for a mere 15 months we felt that Be Virtual Assistant Wise is still in its infancy and the nominations surpassed our expectations.

Being announced as the winners of the VAimpact Business Regional Award is an honour and highlights the fact that the pioneered path of Be Virtual Assistant Wise is noticed and appreciated.

We are humbly honoured and accept the Afrivan Regional Business Award with pride and as proof that we are no longer in our babyhood but are starting to “walk the VA walk”.

Allow us to thank Topsie Egbetokun of AFRIVAN for her devotion to grow the virtual assistant industry in Africa.  Topsie, you are a star!  All the best for the year ahead and may the VA-relationship in Africa and South Africa go and grow from strength to strength.”