Mom Has Virtually Everything

By Angela Shupe on August 12, 2008 in News

You will not need a wand to understand this column. It will only feel that way.
Meredith Eisenberg works at her Albuquerque home for full-time wages she amasses from a half-time career. She wraps her work life around her personal life — a husband and 5-year-old daughter, she makes $50 an hour, she likes what she’s doing. It may not be magic, but it certainly seems unfair.

Except that you, too, can have work like hers. Eisenberg is one of five women included in an article in this month’s Good Housekeeping magazine on moms earning full-time incomes working part time from home.
“For most women, going part-time means accepting the obvious trade-offs. They often make less money, lose benefits, and risk putting their career off track. But there are women who avoid the pitfalls and manage to have it all,” the article says.
Eisenberg is a virtual assistant — meaning she works online for entrepreneurs or small businesses that want administrative help with certain facets of business, say public relations, bookkeeping, writing, blogging and/or Web site development, but don’t want to hire a body. A body needs a set number of hours and office space. A body needs to live nearby. A virtual employee can live anywhere, work as many, or as few, hours as she pleases and buy her own Kleenex and sticky notes.
“I have clients in every time zone except Central,” says Eisenberg, president and CEO of Yellow Highlighter Virtual Assistance. “Most are in New York and the East Coast, Seattle, San Francisco. I don’t have any in Albuquerque.”
She doesn’t have any in New Mexico.
Eisenberg had worked in public relations and public information in the Wash- ington, D.C./Virginia area. When she and her husband, Jame, moved here, she poked around the job market for a part-time option that would give her time to spend with daughter Suzanne. As she was surfing, Assistyou, a Web site about virtual assistants, popped up like a fairy godmother to change her life.
Eisenberg took the classes, figured out what she had to offer and used Assistyou’s referral service. She draws more clients from her own Web site and gets clients from clients.
Among them: a psychologist, a divorce coach, a marketer, a weight loss coach, a writing coach, an art therapist, the host of a feng shui television show.
“I become a partner, provide a sounding board, talk strategy, customize and put up a blog, set up a Web site, help sell a book, write a press release, become a technical assistant,” she said.