1. How can a Bilingual Virtual Assistant help you?
by Claudia Amendola (IT), Sylvie Guiziou (FR) and Sarah Santacroce (CH)
A virtual assistant (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is an
independent entrepreneur who provides professional administrative, technical, or creative
(social) assistance to clients from a home office.
A virtual assistant can help you with your daily tasks that need to be accomplished in
order to run your business successfully. She or he can work on both short-term and long-
term projects without becoming your employee. You can save money by hiring a virtual
assistant as the costs will not include the usual ones related to having a permanent
employee (equipment and rental costs, payroll, taxes, benefits and non-productive hours).
A bilingual VA who speaks and writes at least two languages fluently is highly
beneficial for a firm which does business in those languages.
Below you find a non exhaustive list of some tasks that you can delegate to this
administrative partner.
Administrative tasks:
A bilingual virtual assistant can organize and manage your correspondence or an email
campaign for your business. She can manage your database, updating and entering new
information. If you need travel arrangements, calendar management, email data research,
date entry, transcription or other administrative services in two languages, a bilingual virtual
assistant is the person that can solve all these things, while you focus on more lucrative
work. All you need is a computer, a phone and an internet connection to stay in touch with a
virtual assistant and delegate the tasks to her or him.
Marketing:
Some virtual assistants are specialized in Internet and/or social media marketing. They can
help you set up an article or press release marketing campaign, improve the SEO of your
website and give you other helpful tips on how to increase your client base trough Internet
marketing. They are also experts in how to use social media to increase your leads: create a
business blog, set up an engaging Facebook page, help you how to use Twitter and other
trendy social media tools.

2. Customer Services:
If you are looking for customers worldwide, a bilingual virtual assistant can help you
communicate with your clients in countries whose language you do not speak fluently. A
bilingual virtual assistant can connect with your prospects or customers in their native
language and help you develop your business.
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Translations:
Bilingual virtual assistants can translate your website, articles, press releases or Powerpoint
presentations to their native language or to another language they are fluent in. Human
translations are always better than machine translations and a bilingual or multilingual virtual
assistant can offer you a level of translation that will take your business to the next level. A
virtual assistant is more involved in your business so the translation can be more accurate
and more focused on your needs. Certified translators usually charge more for the same
translations.
Internet Marketing and SEO:
A bilingual virtual assistant can also perform SEO for the targeted language, which is more
than translating the text word by word. He or she will know which keywords are relevant in
the target language so that your translated site will be better ranked in Google or Bing.
The efficient, cost-effective solutions offered by bilingual virtual assistants allow you
to devote more time to your core business, increase productivity and save money.
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Italian and Spanish native speaker, Claudia Amendola of MTvirtualassistant is a
multilingual virtual assistant (it-sp-en) specialized in bilingual customer services, website
translation and travel concierge. htpp://www.mtvirtualassistant.com
French national, Sylvie Guiziou, of Optim Office is a bilingual (fr-en) virtual assistant
dedicated to working with small business owners and individual entrepreneurs to help them
focus on strategic activities that require their full attention. Sylvie delivers virtual assistance in
general administrative services, bilingual En-Fr services, transcription, copywriting, data
entry, Internet research and much more at http://www.optimoffice.fr
Swiss national, Sarah Santacroce runs Simplicity Admin Solutions, a virtual assistance
business working with small businesses and individual entrepreneurs to help them dedicate
their precious time to their core business. Simplicity Admin Solutions offers tailor made virtual
administrative solutions, Internet marketing support, translation service and much more at
http://www.simplicityadmins.com. All services are available in English, German and French.
How can a Bilingual Virtual Assistant help you?
© 2010 Claudia Amendola, Sylvie Guiziou and Sarah Santacroce