The 2-Second Commute

Virtual Assistants work from home, providing everything from administrative support to high-end consulting via email, phone, and fax. Predicted to be a $130 billion industry by 2008, they don't commute, they set their own hours, and they get to spend time with their kids. Wouldn't you like to be a VA, too? Christine Durst founded the Virtual Assistant industry in 1995 from a basement office in rural Connecticut. Michael Haaren, an ex-Wall Street attorney (who grew up in a log cabin), was one of her clients. Together they launched Staffcentrix, a leading VA training company, and the International Virtual Assistants Association, built the first Portable Career/Virtual Assistant Training Program for the Armed Forces, presented at the United Nations, and transformed the Virtual Assistant movement into a global phenomenon. Drawing on years of experience training and mentoring Virtual Assistants around the world, Chris and Mike take the mystery out of home-based virtual careers, and help you avoid the common pitfalls, too.

In The 2-Second Commute, you'll learn how to:

• Market the skills you already have
• Overcome shyness to get the work you want
• Launch your VA business on a shoestring
• Use the business to strengthen your family
• And much more!

The 2-Second Commute's self-assessment exercises will help you decide whether the VA path is a good fit for you, or if you need to acquire new skills before setting out. Interviews with successful VAs, VA clients, and telework industry experts will help you find good clients and projects ASAP (and avoid bad ones), and leverage your first assignment toward a foundation of consistent cashflow that meets your financial and work-life goals. Along the way, you'll meet people who will support and inspire you to do what you, too, may have often longed to do: bid farewell to the rat race, earn a respectable income, and spend more time with your family.

Christine Durst and Michael Haaren co-founded Staffcentrix (www.staffcentrix.com), a leader in VA training, and the International Virtual Assistants Association (www.ivaa.org), the industry's premier regulatory organization. They appear often in such media as Business Week, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and publish frequently on virtual career issues. Chris resides with her two children in Woodstock, Connecticut, and Mike resides in Sterling, Virginia.