We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sarah Szekir-Papasavva a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Sarah, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?
I’ve found that the definition of success can vary greatly from one person to another. Personally, I like to define being successful as having the ability to reach one’s goals in life, whatever those goals may turn out to be. And it is in this sense that I feel many small businesses succeed, day in and day out, regardless of considerable financial profits or scalability. I am proud to be a very small business, and to also support other small businesses, as in my view, alongside the many challenges faced by small business owners, including limited resources and scarce support, it is an achievement simply to break even each month.
I believe that it takes a lot of strength, resilience, persistence, confidence and creativity to be successful. All vital ingredients to a small business owner crafting and building their own business.
I founded Apt Virtual Assistance (AptVA) in search of a better work/life balance for myself after I became a mother and needed a flexible role, working remotely, which allowed me to spend more time with my young daughter, and also allowed me to offer the executive and design assistance services that I trained for, and enjoyed offering. I was inspired to assist small business owners, predominantly female founders, who wore too many hats and yearned for flexible yet trustworthy high-quality support with a range of admin and creative tasks, because I greatly identified with the many needs they had. This naturally helped me to streamline my services, providing my clients with the highest standards of professional admin and creative support. It also allowed me to fulfil my own goals, working flexibly, supporting others using my skillset, being financially independent, running a sustainable business, as well as being an ever-present mother.
It has always been hard work, but every business lesson learnt along the journey paved the way to shaping the support I offer to my target audience – people who, like myself, believe in building strong, successful and responsible businesses, which can represent their values, reflect their dreams, innovate their market, and contribute to our society as a whole.
Every small business owner I work with inspires me to continue striving to grow, and to continue being a trustworthy right hand that can help set the ideal balance, either when laying the foundations or when growing their dream businesses further. This to me, is what being successful truly means. I value each and every small business I work with, and through a professional mixture of creativity, efficiency, and commitment, we achieve consistently high results collaboratively. Whether they are big or small, every achievement is a cause for celebration, as they forge the path to success.
Optimal success varies, but perhaps if we amplified the many voices of small business owners around the world, we’d have a more realistic idea of what it takes to be positively successful.
Sarah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
As a Virtual Assistant, I provide small business owners with professional, high-quality and bespoke administrative and creative support. The range of virtual services I offer through AptVA’s Bespoke Virtual Assistance are tailored to what each individual client truly needs, and would benefit from the most, especially when juggling so many essential tasks, often single-handedly. AptVA offers trustworthy, efficient, reliable, and proactive support, enabling small business owners to achieve a better and more manageable work/life balance, giving them back something truly valuable: time. By doing what they do best and delegating the rest, my clients can considerably reduce stress and amplify their success.
I’m originally from Brazil, having moved to England with my family almost three decades ago, when I was ten years-old. I immediately fell in love with the language, history and bustling London environment, and have since spent around half of my life in each country, finally settling down in London once I started a family. This journey inspired a lifelong fondness for travel, different languages, remote working, and the endless possibilities of being globally connected to diverse communities through tech and the digital world.
From a very young age I’ve always been keen to learn new skills, challenge myself, and to be of help to others. I studied Visual Arts at university, attaining a BA in Painting, followed by a Master’s Degree in Fine Art, specialising in Digital Art. Whilst I love being creative, the other half of me is passionate about being highly-organised and efficient in all that I do. I love implementing structures and solving problems, and so I naturally decided to combine both my passions, which put me in an ideal position to assist others through a range of admin and creative services, as a Virtual Assistant.
I initially worked in a few different roles, before becoming a Personal Assistant (PA), and later on I qualified as an Executive Assistant (EA), working for the Director of a family-run Private Commercial Property Group worth £2.7 billion in central London. Although I very much enjoyed my position there, once I became a mother to my now six year-old daughter, the long office hours wouldn’t provide me with the flexibility I needed, and so it was then that I discovered the Virtual Assistance world. I completed a Virtual Assistant Course through Souters Training, where I had previously trained as an EA, and setup Apt Virtual Assistance. It has always been hard work, but every business lesson learnt along the journey paved the way to shaping the support I offer to my target audience – people who, like myself, believe in building strong, successful and responsible businesses, which can represent their values, reflect their dreams, innovate their market, and contribute to our society as a whole.
Every small business owner I work with inspires me to continue striving to grow, and to continue being a trustworthy right hand that can help set the ideal balance, either when laying the foundations or when growing their dream business further. I believe that working remotely, digitally and globally, in an industry which has a truly thriving and supportive community of Virtual Assistants, has enabled me to become a better person – certainly a more resilient and skilled professional, a better determined and conscious small business owner, and a more connected friend and family member, as well as an ever-present mother. This has enabled me to fully practise what I preach to my clients, who are also trying to achieve the ideal work/life balance, even throughout the tough times we are currently facing in the UK.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
I market my business mostly through networking, but also through social media, and visual branding. Early on in my business journey, a month after launching AptVA, I joined a local networking group – The Athena Network – a leading international networking, training and development business club for female executives and entrepreneurs, which I am still a member of. Within the first year of membership, around 60% of my clients had come directly from connections made within the network, and it continues to be the best source of new clients for me. I love networking, and I really enjoy reaping the many benefits it offers, not only through marketing my business, but also in learning from others, sharing knowledge, experiences and support, being inspired, and finding collaborative opportunities with other like-minded professionals.
My networking experience has expanded my reach considerably, allowing me to promote my services to a wider and varied range of small business owners, my ideal clients. In over five years of membership, I have worked with many members across the UK, as well as being the VA to three different Regional Directors. I am also Chair of my homegroup and regularly deliver Business Development Talks, on topics such as Time Management, Systems optimisation, Project Management Tools, and Being Award-Winning, which help market my skills and expertise to visitors, members and the general public alike. I’ve also refined my networking skills through the training the network provides, learning how to network in a professional capacity, so that I am able to market my business seamlessly and naturally at any given opportunity.
The Athena Network: https://theathenanetwork.com/
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
I believe AptVA’s reputation has been built through several achievements:
– Being an award-winning business, winning multiple awards within my industry. To date, AptVA has proudly received nine awards, including ‘Outstanding VA of the Year 2022’, ‘VA of the Year England 2021’, ‘VA of the Year South East England 2020’ and ‘Best Newcomer VA 2019’ at the UK VA Awards.
– Our Corporate Social Responsibility commitment, upholding a strong company mission, vision and values, as outlined in our CSR here: (https://www.aptva.com/csr). This has been praised by clients and colleagues alike, and we have been lucky to feature in The Carbon Almanac’s ‘Wall of Fame’ (https://thecarbonalmanac.org/wall-of-fame/), supporting this amazing collaboration of 300+ contributors, from 90+ countries, composed of volunteer writers, researches, designers, leaders and illustrators, who came together to produce a brilliant collection of facts about climate change, in an easy to understand format, so that we can learn actionable insights to create meaningful change. Their urgent message is that it is not too late for people and businesses alike, to actually make a difference and head towards a different direction. It fundamentally teaches us that together we can all make small but meaningful changes, that can make an impact, and essentially create a better tomorrow. AptVA is always committed to contributing to a more sustainable society, and reducing our environmental footprint by being a paperless office is one of our big commitments through our CSR. We also gifted our longest standing clients a copy of the book, as part of our support to creating lasting change and encourage other small businesses to do the same.
– Our annual online Advent Calendars which countdown to Christmas each year. It reveals twenty-four inspiring small businesses, all women-led and all based locally to us, in London. Supporting small businesses is very close to my heart, be it through assisting our clients, networking, or through referrals and recommendations. There is always a story behind each recommendation included in our advent calendars and the relationships built alongside them. We have always received fantastic feedback, and it has helped to build our own reputation as small business supporters, but also others’ reputation, through the referrals and connections made.
– Our consistent business growth, extensive professional development, client retention and enhanced customer experience, as well as our continuous dedication to supporting small businesses through tough times has also contributed to AptVA’s reputation with existing and new clients.
– I also strongly believe in collaboration over competition, and therefore I love to learn and share best practise with other Virtual Assistants, through networking, attending conferences and training workshops, as well as socials. This has introduced me to many wonderful colleagues, as well as provided many opportunities to build my reputation within my industry too.
UK VA Awards: https://vaconference.co.uk/
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.aptva.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aptvirtualassistance
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aptva
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-szekir-papasavva/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/AptVirtual
Image Credits
Profile headshots: Natalia Zapala-Movshovitz