About

I'm the one in the white dress!

Hi, I’m Chris Beamish and I own Help on Tap, a Virtual Assistance business based in New Brighton, UK.

I got married to Dave in 2004, in Las Vegas (if you hadn’t already guessed!). Las Vegas was brilliant and I had one the best meals I had ever had in my life at Rosemarys. It happened to be on my wedding day so that was a bonus. I would love to return some day.

My Inspiration

Daughter Rosie - there's very curly hair under the hat

While I was contracting I found out I was pregnant.
A lot of the job had been moved over to a helpdesk in Poland and I didn’t really enjoy the job so I decided to look around for other options.

At that point I had not heard of a Virtual Assistant or VA, as it is often shortened to. It is a relatively new Industry in the UK but one that I notice is growing from day to day.

I joined a number of VA forums and discovered that VAs were really quite highly skilled, especially on the internet. I needed to learn all the skills they had and quickly. I learnt so much from the forums and would advise you to join them and participate in them.

Mistakes

I didn’t have the money to be able to put my Daughter into a nursery so it has been a struggle. I have made mistakes, such as answering the phone with a screaming child in the background, offering cheaper rates to get clients, advertising in the wrong places, but I have learnt my lessons.

Don’t make the same mistakes I made:

• Have your calls answered professionally. Check out these telephone answering services.
• Don’t undersell yourself – stick with the rates you have advertised.

Growth

There are so many VA businesses thriving at the moment and in the UK the VA industry is growing.

I have also learnt so much in the past 5 years and wanted to pass that on to aspiring Virtual Assistants. I hope this site helps you to grow your knowledge and you build a successful VA business.