A number of my friends have asked me, "Carly--why (as a college-graduate), would you want to be someone's virtual assistant?" The truth is that it's a real dream job for me and my family because:

1. Since I live in Israel, most jobs here are in Hebrew. (While my Hebrew is fluent and good, it can't compete with a native Israeli's Hebrew.) It is such a pleasure to have the opportunity to work in my native English language.

2. I also love that I don't have to commute to work. (My friends travel an hour each way; what a waste of time!). My office is right in my house and accessible whenever I have the time to do a few minutes or hours of work.

3. I'm able to be a stay-at-home mom, while bringing in money at the same time. Such a job is almost impossible to find, but I am one of the fortunate few. I am ever grateful!

MORE ABOUT CARLY

Carly has been managing offices in the United States for the past 7 years. She is originally from Chicago, and she graduated with a BA from Thomas Edison State College. Carly loves helping small business owners build their companies, adding helpful and creative insights to help things run as efficiently as possible.

How can I manage my client’s calendar and book his appointments when he lives in the US and I live in Israel? Thanks to Secretary in Israel’s method, it is really so simple!

My client and I share a Google Calendar, which is very easy to use. My client and I can both put in events, and both of us can see the events that the other has made.

When my client wants to schedule a meeting with someone, he either emails me what he has in mind or he emails the person ccing me, mentioning that I’ll be the one to work out the details. I take it over from that point on and reach out to his contact to schedule the appointment.

How do I know where my client wants to have meetings or on which days? How do I know how long to book the meetings? That’s part of the beauty of Secretary in Israel.

Before clients start working with me, Justin Karr, our Managing Director, meets with our clients and goes through a series of questions about exactly how our clients want their appointments scheduled. We’ve developed these questions from working with many clients over the past 2 years. Justin puts these questions into a Google doc that he then shares with me.

Sample questions Justin reviews with clients include:

• Which days does the client want to do in-person meetings and phone meetings?
• How long should meetings be?
• Where are the top 3 places the clients prefers to meet?
• What is the call-in # the client wants to use for conference call meetings?
• And so on…

To find all the information that I need in order to book my client's appointments, I just look in the Google doc and all the information is there.

To book an actual appointment, I’ll email my client's contact and ask her when she is free, suggesting a few times when my client is free.

When I hear back from her, I'll book the appointment in Google Calendar, writing the contact's name, phone #, and the location of the meeting.

One day prior to the meeting, I'll confirm with my client's client about the meeting. I will then change the appointment to: CONFIRMED - Name of Contact. This way, my client will know the appointment has been confirmed. I will also put into the event's description any information that my client should know before making that call, such as the background or objective of the call.

That's it! That's how I schedule appointments for my client, who is an entrepreneur in the US, while I'm here in Israel.

MORE ABOUT CARLY

Carly has been managing offices in the United States for the past 7 years. She is originally from Chicago, and she graduated with a BA from Thomas Edison State College. Carly loves helping small business owners build their companies, adding helpful and creative insights to help things run as efficiently as possible.