As unemployment rates rise, now over 12% in California, individuals are starting their own businesses and looking for ways to cut expenses. Many moms are now opting to stay home with their children and find a way to add to the family budget working from home as virtual assistants. Some small business owners are reducing costs by using virtual offices and assistants instead of hiring a part-time assistant and renting office space.

What is a virtual office and a virtual assistant? A virtual office business in Sacramento is Capsity Offices located at 2321 P Street in Midtown Sacramento. Capsity combines the traditional office environment with coworking and virtual offices. This allows businesses to establish a professional image through shared business resources: business address, phone system, workspace, conference rooms, networking events, and now Virtual Assistant Services. Jeff Louie of Capsity states, "Our community asked us to develop the virtual assistant piece to our model of the Entrepreneurial Fueling Station."

Virtual Assistants provide a variety of support services to business owners from their own office or a virtual office. These shared, pay-as-you go professionals are also called virtual office professionals. They’re not employees, they're entrepreneurs themselves, so not only do they really understand the business owner’s challenges, they don't come with all the extra costs in money and time that come with hiring an employee.

Virtual Assistants in the Sacramento area receive additional support and training in a variety of ways. Both Sacramento City College and Sierra College have certificate programs for those interested in becoming Virtual Professionals. The Northern California Virtual Assistants Meetup Group was founded by one of Sierra College’s graduates, Sara Gaffney. The group currently has 48 members and meets monthly in various locations throughout the Greater Sacramento area. Many are also members of an online group of Virtual Assistants at FindVirtual.com which now has over 1,050 members.

To provide additional training to Virtual Assistants in the Sacramento area, including the Capsity Offices Assistant, Capsity Offices is sponsoring a 3-hour Virtual Assistant Workshop on July 9, 2010 hosted by Sue and Joel Canfield of Chief Virtual Officer. This workshop is designed to help Virtual Assistants grow their business. It's not skills training but business coaching. "This workshop will help me stay motivated to keep going. I look forward to learning more about the whole marketing and personal face-to-face networking thing," states Neilia Dudley of Butterfly Blue VA. Details and registration for the workshop can be found at Event Brite: http://sacramentovaworkshop.eventbrite.com/.

Today’s new style of work based around technology and collaboration will continue to foster more coworking, virtual offices and virtual assistants. The coworking and virtual assistant industries will continue to grow and work together. Virtual office professionals working from virtual offices will help business owners get more done, save time, money, effort, and frustration, and help grow their business.

"Disclosure: Sue Canfield operates Chief Virtual Officer. She coaches Virtual Assistants and will be presenting at the July 9, 2010 Workshop at Capsity Offices.”