TWO working mothers have built a company out of helping organise other people’s businesses.

Syma Brown and Marianne Cockle run Coatal VAs, a Bournemouth-based enterprise offering the services of virtual assistants.

They deal with admin but also offer marketing and social media packages for their clients.

The two graduates knew each other through their children’s swimming classes before working as virtual assistants (VAs) for the same business and eventually starting up on their own.

Marianne said: “We both had different careers for about 10 years but when we had families, we decided to take a career break. We met at the baby swimming classes.

“A few years after we met, Syma was recruited to work as a VA by one of her old bosses. When the business grew and needed more help, she recruited me.

“We did that for several years when our children were quite small. After a few years, we reached the point where we couldn’t grow any more within that business. We spoke to our boss and she completely understood and with her blessing, we left the business.”

When they were employed VAs, the two had clients from all over the world, but since setting up their own business, they have found most of their clients are local.

“When we started on our own business, initially it was just Syma and I doing the work. We found or best way of getting clients was networking and local people,” said Marianne.

“So although we’re virtual, all our clients are pretty local and we meet with them once or twice a year in person if they want.”

The work can include answering emails, invoicing, running events, social media and lead generation. For websites, they can create a colour scheme and brand identity before referring clients to specialised website builders.

Marianne said: “A lot of people come to us because they’ve reached a growth point in their business or they say ‘I want to break into this new market’.”

The pair have three other VAs on their team. Syma said: “Every VA is very different because they tend to work on what their skills are. Marianne and I don’t do call answering. We like that flexibility of being able to work when we want to rather than set hours.”

Marianne added: “We all work from our own homes. Most of us work from our kitchen tables. Nearly all our work is done online. We have an online office space and we use that to connect with our clients and also share work and store files.”

Although they run the business from home while raising children, Syma said it had not been hard to focus amid the potential distractions of home life.

Syma said: “People say ‘I couldn’t work at home because it would be distracting’, but that doesn’t happen at all. When I sit down to work for three hours, I work for three hours.”