When Andrew Cohen and I started WorkBetterNow five years ago (in a bar in Portland, Oregon), we saw an opportunity to help business owners become more productive and successful by providing them with incredibly talented virtual assistants. Our mantra was “Every business owner should have an assistant.” 

During 2021, we saw several clients hiring more than one “assistant.” When we spoke with them about this, they said that their WBN assistants had many skills that had value well beyond the typical assistant role (which already is a hugely impactful role). So, they started hiring WBN talent for roles such as marketing coordinators, project managers and bookkeeping managers, to name a few. 

Over the past 12 months or so, some of our clients have reached out to us with comments such as “WBN talent are way beyond the description of assistants.” We received a few emails along these lines, that the term “assistants” doesn’t properly describe what many WBN’ers do.  

Now, to be clear, about half of our talent pool serve as assistants. Our clients that have one, will tell you their assistants are among the most valuable people in their organization. However, we have been realizing that calling all WBN talent assistants just isn’t appropriate. Consider that WBN talent have job titles such as: 

• Inside Sales Associate 
• Marketplace/PPC Analyst 
• Dispatcher 
• Business Operations Manager 
• Accounting and HR Administrator 
• Marketing and Business Development Associate 
• Project Manager 

So, we are thrilled to announce that we are renaming WBN talent to “remote professionals.” This is the term to describe the talent that we provide to our clients. Each professional has a title like the ones above, given to them by the organization that hires them. Thus, as a group, we will no longer refer to them as “virtual assistants” but as remote professionals. 

This doesn’t change the work that our professionals do. It does change how we market WBN as it now more properly reflects the wide variety of ways that our remote professionals help our clients succeed.