Melis from Turkey

Most employees in the working world still work on-site at their companies. This causes a lot of stress for many employees due to commuting, inflexible working hours, poor work-life balance and sometimes being in a long-distance or weekend relationship. For our VPAs, it’s different. You’ll work as a freelancer and carry out 100% of your work remotely.

We had a chat with Melis, who is one of our VPAs. Melis lives in Istanbul, Turkey and has been with my-vpa since 2017.

Hello Melis, thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us! You’ve been living in Turkey for a few years now. Was the decision a relatively spontaneous one or did you also want to see more of Turkey?

I was born and raised in Germany, and, up until three years ago, I lived in Bavaria. But I always toyed with the idea of moving to Turkey. When I met my boyfriend at the time, who lived in Turkey, I got more serious about the idea. So, when we eventually wanted to get married, we had to decide whether we’d live in Turkey or Germany. We chose Turkey.

Have you also worked in other fields in Turkey outside of my-vpa?

For a long time, my husband had a job for which he had to travel a lot. About every three weeks, he went to a different place to see a different customer. When I moved to Turkey to live with him, we travelled a lot in the first few months and I had the opportunity to get to know some cities in Turkey. So, it was also really good for me to be able to see and get to know more of the country. After a while, I realised this wasn’t enough for me — I had to get a job of my own. So, I applied to a German automotive company that had a site in Ankara in Turkey. They accepted my application relatively quickly, and I was renting my own flat in Ankara within two weeks.

What kind of education and work experience do you have?

I have a degree in Business Administration and Economics. In my final year of studies, I did an internship along with my bachelor dissertation at BMW. This was a good entry point into the automotive industry for me, and I returned to this industry when I moved to Turkey.

How did you come across my-vpa? What do you like about it?

It was a rather long process for me. Since I lived in Ankara when I was working, while my partner continued to travel a lot for work, I sometimes felt a little lonely here in Turkey. A desire grew in me to find a job that wouldn’t tie me down to one location. So, I started researching what jobs I could do that would give me a some more flexibility. I quickly came across my-vpa and thought the whole concept was pretty good. But I wasn’t able to decide whether to take the plunge and become a freelancer at my-vpa right away, as I thought to myself: people here in Turkey wait years and years to get the opportunity to work at a German company. I can’t just throw it away.

However, about a year later, my desire for more flexibility in my working life was so strong that I thought about taking the plunge again. Then there was the prospect of starting a family in the future. This is obviously a really hard thing to juggle alongside an employed position in Turkey. You don’t get as much parental leave as you do in Germany; here, you’re entitled to a maximum of six months’ unpaid leave. I mulled this, and my desire for more flexibility, over for some time and then decided to give my-vpa a shot and take the plunge. I did it, and there’s not been a single time that I’ve regretted this decision. I’m really glad to have found this opportunity and am happy with how it’s currently going.

What are your strengths as a VPA and which tasks do you take on in which areas?

In the beginning, I mainly took on office management and office activities. So, things like client support, replying to emails and so on. Only doing this kind of work in the beginning was good, because I could get my bearings with my-vpa’s system and didn’t have to rush to establish a client base. 

Later on, I broadened the range of tasks I took on. I began doing marketing activities, such as social media support, newsletters, etc., and I’ve also been working in sales for ccustomers for a few months. As for sales, I already have relevant experience thanks to previous activities, and I now have customers through my-vpa whom I support in this area. 

But, as a VPA, you don’t necessarily have to have experience in all areas, since you’re able to learn so much while working as a VPA. I’ve noticed how I can develop my skills, learn something new or apply my knowledge with every task and with every customer. 

How does customer support work at my-vpa?

my-vpa organises client support really well.As a VPA, you’re not on your own when it comes to communicating with customers, since you can rely on the support of the my-vpa team from start to finish. When you’re working with a new customer, there’s a system that helps you to get up to speed. This is the process you go through. If everything goes well and the customer eventually becomes a repeat customer at my-vpa at the end of the process, you as a VPA can then call this client one of your regular clients. 

And, if anything’s unclear, there are people you can contact for support and advice. It’s not just you and the customer. That’s definitely an advantage of working with my-vpa.

What’s it like for you to be working with German-speaking companies although you’re in Turkey?

I’m really lucky because that was the one worry I had in the back of my mind before moving to Turkey. Specifically, if I’m not speaking German every day, will I forget parts of the language or particular bits of vocabulary?

So, it’s great for me that all my customers on my-vpa are German customers and I can speak my native language with someone almost every day.

Are there opportunities to work with other VPAs?

Some customers have several tasks that they can outsource. For large projects, they might also put together a team of VPAs to work on a task together. For example, I’ve already worked on a team research project in the real estate sector. We were a big team. There must have been ten of us VPAs working together on a single list. This is how you come into contact with the other VPAs. You get to see their faces, write to each other, and get to know each other.

Before, I wouldn’t have thought that it would be possible to build such personal contacts or friendships virtually with a job like this. It helps when you have something in common. For example, on the my-vpa app, I can see whether a particular VPA works in Turkey and whether they maybe work for the same customer too. If so, we already have something in common.

I thought that a a big downside of working from home would be that I wouldn’t be able to make any friends through my job, but apparently I was wrong.

What does the perfect working environment look like for you?

That’s something that’s changed a lot for me. In the beginning, I was constantly on the route with my husband and worked from hotel rooms the whole time. After a while, I came to prefer a permanent workspace with a desk and chair.

Since the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve noticed that I like to change up where I work now and then. Sometimes I work in the lounge, sometimes in the kitchen, and when I need peace and quiet, I’ll work at my desk. I also sometimes sit on the sofa in the evening with my laptop on my lap. 

All I need is my laptop, a notepad and a stable internet connection. 

When I started out, I often thought about going to a café to do some work, but I haven’t managed to do that once in one and half years because I have regular meetings with customers. It wouldn’t make a good impression having a coffee machine behind me in the background of my picture along with all the noise. But maybe one day I’ll be able to work from a café. That mostly depends on what kind of tasks I’m working on.

What digital tools do you use?

The my-vpa app is the central hub for all our work. It’s where tasks come in and where we communicate with each other. But I’ve also learnt how to use a lot of new tools. There were a lot of tools that I’d never even heard of before that I can now use very well and find to be extremely helpful in my day-to-day work. For example, I regularly use Google Drive, SurveyMonkey and Slack. This varies from customer to customer. If a customer uses a particular software system, such as Salesforce, then you as a VPA are shown how to work with it. But if you’re already familiar with it then that’s obviously an advantage. 

Why do you like working remotely?

The flexibility to organise your own work is what I really like. My parents live in Turkey in a small town by the sea. If I want to take a short holiday, I can go there relatively spontaneously, taking my laptop with me so that I can still work while I’m there. 

Thanks so much for this insight into your life and work routine, Melis! We wish you all the best for the future, and we are pleased to hear that working as a freelance VPA is such a good fit for your lifestyle and preferences.

Stay safe and see you soon!