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Meet the Staff | Jobs | Strategic Alliances | Privacy Ethics | Copyright | Site Design Credits | Contact Us Assist University Founded: Early 1997; formalized the Virtual Assistance profession. Where We Are Although our President and Chief Visionary Officer, Stacy Brice, is located in the suburbs of Baltimore, one of the nation's largest technology hubs, AssistU is a truly virtual organization. Want to send us something tangible? Send it here:
76 Cranbrook Rd., Suite 192 Feel free to give us a call: 866/829-6757 Want to send us a note? Hours: 9a - 5p, Monday - Friday. We do our best to answer any inquiries within hours of receiving them; know that your inquiry is important to us and we'll be in touch as soon as possible. What We Do Simply put, we inspire people to greatness. The result is that our Virtual Assistants are successful beyond their wildest imaginings, and the clients they serve are thrilled. And isn't that what it's all about? The leader in professional training for Virtual Assistants, our comprehensive and transformative 20-week training program not only supports someone in becoming a Virtual Assistant, but also in the creation of a solid and sustainable business—one that contributes to the VA having a high-quality life. Our abundance-minded, collaborative community makes sure that working at home never has to mean working alone. And though the training stops at the end of 20 weeks, the support we offer doesn't; it continues through the life-cycle of a VA's business with advanced classes, opportunities for world-class coaching from professionally trained business and personal coaches, the highest certification in the industry, access to experts in a variety of topics, special interest groups, a members area full of up-to-date information and a proprietary knowledge base full of resources our VAs find extraordinarily useful in their work, travel-and-learn opportunities, and in-person and virtual community events. Our integrity and high standards continue to raise the bar for the industry. We are committed to service to our community, our profession, and the global community at large. What We Stand For Fundamentally, AssistU is a service organization. Those we serve:
As a values-centered, spiritually guided company, we support and fully embrace the Blueprint for New Leadership, which is a manifesto for enlightened corporate leadership written by Lance Secretan:
The role of the organization:
Purpose:
Sacredness and respect:
Honorable profits:
Spirit at work:
Values:
Truth-telling and promise-keeping:
Servant leadership:
Fun:
Love:
Learning:
Change:
Potential:
Beauty:
Balance:
Authenticity:
Courage:
Grace: For a more complete look at how these concepts play out in our company, click here
I love telling the story :) In the early 80's, I was working as a frontline travel agent in my mother's travel agency. Just a few short years later, finding an affinity for taking care of the needs of busy professionals, I invented my own role — that of Executive Travel Planner, and I provided the highest quality travel planning and related services to corporate executives, physicians, and consultants. What I quickly discovered was that those people really needed someone to take great care of them. Someone to make their lives easier, so that they, on the far end of their travels, could be more productive, generate more income, and be more relaxed. And I found that these clients were asking me to do other things for them, completely unrelated to their travel plans. That's when I began to see, through my own experiences, that people could work together very well, across the distance. I rarely ever met any of my clients, and yet the impact I was having on their lives was tremendous. I began to formulate an idea for how that sort of assistance, virtual, if you will, assistance, could benefit busy people everywhere. Unfortunately, as that was even before telecommuting, and because my vision wasn't big enough, the ideas mulling around in my head started and stopped with me. Little did I know my time was coming! In 92, I made a huge change. I moved myself out of the agency environment and into my own home office. I worked as an outside contractor for the agency, providing my clients with the travel planning and personal assistance they most needed. All of this was done virtually. My client base was international. I was a Virtual Assistant, but didn't realize it, yet. Moving into the mid-nineties, a friend pointed me in the direction of Coach U — the leader in professional coach training. Intrigued, I signed up for their internet newsletters — hoping to learn more about the profession of coaching, and the training program they offered. And one day, a notice was sent out to all the newsletter subscribers. Thomas Leonard, founder of Coach U, was going to be traveling the country in his RV on sabbatical, and he wanted someone to run his life for him while he was away. Instantly excited, I saw the opportunity to test my theory about assisting someone across the distance who wasn't also one of my travel planning clients. It was terrific :) What an amazing learning experience. I'll be forever grateful for it. Thomas is the one who shared with me the term, "Virtual Assistant." At last, a name for what I'd been doing for close to a decade!! Within months, coaches and other professionals approached me. Seeing the difference I had made in Thomas' life, they wanted me to do the same for them! My practice was a virtual laboratory; with every new client experience, I learned more about doing this work — what it took to be successful, what it meant to really partner with someone in this kind of relationship, what clients wanted, and how to create my life the way that I most wanted it to be. My vision grew enormously, and I began to have a true idea of what broader implications there were to working this way. Always the entrepreneur, I decided that I very much also wanted to become a professional coach, so I entered the Coach Training Program at Coach U and began to, concurrently, coach women to live authentic lives, and assist others virtually. In November of '96, a journalist approached me about doing a piece about my work as a VA. When that piece was published (The Secretary, Feb, 1997), hundreds of women approached me, anxious and excited about learning how to work from home, using the skills they'd honed in the corporate world. And I realized that there was a need for a training program — a way for these people to get top notch information and training that wouldn't just tell them how to do the *work* associated with being a VA, but that would help them start, and more importantly, sustain their own small business. I knew I wasn't going to be content offering them tools to use to do this work. Most of them had those tools to begin with. What I noticed, however, that they didn't have was a structure/framework for stepping out of the boxes they'd been in for so long at the corporate level, nor an idea of how to create a business and life they longed for. I did vast amounts of research, talking with women who owned office support services businesses, and found out a great deal about why most of them were unsuccessful, and, more importantly, unhappy. I learned what they really needed to succeed, and in March of '97, AssistU was founded to meet those needs. For more than five years, we've blazed a trail. The leader in the industry, we've revolutionized the way people work together by introducing the concept of the VA working in partnership with clients — a substantial breakthrough and an absolute shattering of the traditional Boss/assistant paradigm. We were the first to create a community for VAs, the only ones to create a training program for them, and the first to offer a referral service to prospective clients. Our referral service remains the only one to endorse the VAs who are a part of it — something we're happy to do because we know them, personally and professionally, and we know, first hand, what they're capable of bringing to their clients. We know more about this profession than anyone else — and we pass that knowledge on freely to those we serve to assist them in creating the successes they most want. We've trained hundreds of people to be the best VAs in the world. We've done that by having the highest standards in the industry, and through the use of rigorous quality guidelines. To this day, we accept less than half the people who apply for entrance to our program, and not everyone successfully completes the program, although our failure rate is very low. We've coached the VAs in our community to create lives they love and that support them financially and personally. We've created a professional community of VAs that's second to none... where the VAs see each other as partners for success rather than competitors, and where they support each other every step of the way as they grow their individual practices and step more fully into the lives they've created for themselves. We give them the tools they need to be successful, introduce them to advanced technologies, connect them with experts, and continue to support them with classes, resources, and by continuing, as advocate, to push the profession forward. As the profession has grown and changed, so have we, and so will we continue. Our program and our community are highly adaptive, and every single one of us is passionate about Virtual Assistance. Have a question? Just ask. We're here to help.
While we're virtual, real people make up our wonderful staff at AssistU. We're not just fabulous, efficient, smart VAs; we're also fun and interesting people on our terms. Let's take you to the first bio, that of Stacy Brice, founder and Chief Visionary Officer.
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Currently, there are no openings at AssistU. If you feel, however, that you have something to offer to us, and you're interested in working with a company whose take on creating a successful business doesn't in any way exclude or devalue the people who work within it, please be in touch. We want to know you.
In our world, relationships are a driving force, so AssistU is always looking for terrific strategic relationships, whether for marketing, joint ventures, collaboration, or even the offering of products or services as benefits to our VAs and their clients. If you have something you'd like to discuss, please be in touch.
We do not collect information about the visitors to our site unless they correspond with us via email. We do collect those email addresses in order to periodically correspond with our visitors about updates to our site, or to give news about our organization or industry that might be helpful to them.
We never share information collected with other organizations.
If you do not want to receive e-mail from us in the future, please let us know by sending us email and telling us that you do not want to receive e-mail from our company.
It's important , as you evaluate companies online with whom you could do business, that you feel secure that they really offer something of value, and that people are not being scammed or ripped off in any way.
Because our integrity is of vast importance to us, we welcome you, and urge you to check us out as thoroughly as you need to before deciding whether our Virtual Training Program is right for you.
We're open to answering all your questions. We don't put up smoke screens or make vague promises because we don't have good answers. We offer you the truth, whether it's good or not-so-good, and leave the decision making in your hands. We are happy to talk with you, our trained VAs are happy to talk with you, and even some of the VAs' clients are happy to talk with you. Openly and honestly.
We offer monthly telediscussions with Stacy Brice, President of AssistU, so that you can have voice to voice contact with the founder of our organization, and get questions answered.
We want you to know us, and feel great about joining us. We're not interested in making a fast buck.
If you want to see if there have been any less than stellar comments made about AssistU, there are several ways you can go about that:
 Most of all, go with your gut. If we feel legit to you, that's because we are. All written material and HTML code found on the AssistU web site is protected by United States Federal Copyright law, with all rights reserved. It may not, under any circumstances, be reprinted in any form, or hosted on any web site without explicit written permission from Stacy Brice. Please don't steal our work. It's foolish to break the law, and we defend our copyright vigorously.
If you are unsure about what copyright infringement or intellectual
property piracy is, please do your due diligence and learn. Here are
some great resources to get you started:
Webmaster - Site Development - Site Maintenance - Graphics:
Original Site Design - Information Architecture - We want to make it easy for you to get the information you need from us. We have several available methods:
Online chat Generally speaking, we're online from 9a - 5p, eastern, M-F, and are happy to answer your questions. Click on the icon at the top of the page to connect with one of us. If we're unavailable, you can also use it to send us a message. Phone Feel free to call us. We'd love to hear from you! Our toll-free number is 866-VAWorks (866-829-6757). We're in the office 9a - 5p, eastern, Monday - Friday. If you'd like to write to us, please choose the most appropriate department. Unsure or don't see something listed that fits your question or concern? Write to our VA Care Desk and your email will be forwarded to the perfect person to help you. Copyright © 1994-2008 by Stacy Brice and Assist University, all rights reserved. Text, graphics, and HTML code are protected by US and International Copyright Laws, and may not be copied, reprinted, published, translated, hosted, or otherwise distributed by any means without explicit permission. |
People often ask me to share with them how I came to pioneer this wonderful profession, and then formalize it by founding the premier organization training and coaching virtual assistants, and making referrals to those who want to work with them.
