Rebranding - How, Why and When?

Nip and Tuck – We’re Rebranding

Carpe Diem! Rebranding as an investment
time for rebranding

Time for Rebranding!

If you visited our website or Facebook page in the last week, you may have noticed something a bit different. Something you can’t quite put your finger on, but you can sense an improvement. A refresh. Yes, we will admit it, we had some work done – we rebranded.

We have always been intensely proud of our company, our team, our top notch service and offerings, but lately, we have felt that one thing could stand improvement: our name.

When our company was founded a little over five years ago, our focus was administrative (read: secretarial) support. We placed administrative assistants in Israel with clients in the US, hence the name “Secretary in Israel”.

Our original name served us well and earned us the privilege of serving clients in need of such secretarial support. In the last few years, however, the outsourcing world has exploded. Social media, content marketing and digital media have taken over, and even your butcher has a blog. In response, the breadth of our services expanded exponentially and much like a beloved, broken-in-but- past-their-prime pair of heels, we began to outgrow our name.

We have debated heatedly (we do everything with a healthy dose of passion over here) over the value of our name and whether updating it will ultimately damage our brand, our reputation or our most valuable asset – our client relationships.  No progress has ever been made without risk, so the time has come to bite the bullet and unveil our new name – Virtual Assistant Israel. No need to hold your applause, we like it, too!

Why now? Rebranding is an investment – it can be risky, scary and complicated. After weighing the pros and cons we felt that the updated name is a more accurate reflection of the professional, proactive service we provide. We’ve designed and executed several rebranding campaigns for our clients; it was time to treat ourselves to that same full-day spa package.

As we have become more active and identifiable on social media – come connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn  – we have begun to put ourselves ‘out there’, making connections, meeting new clientele and being a part of the conversation.  Networking, both on and offline, is all about introducing yourself and offering expertise, advice, guidance and assistance. Exasperated with explaining, “We offer more than secretarial services, the name is a bit of a misnomer,” we merged our sister company, Virtual Assistant Israel, with Secretary in Israel and rolled it all together under the Virtual Assistant Israel name.

If you feel your company has reached a point where your name is limiting (don’t you remember Tape World in the mall? – imagine how they felt in 1992 when CDs reached critical mass) – consider rebranding. We have lived through it and are here to tell you – Carpe diem!  You do not have nearly as much to lose as you have to gain. How will your veteran clients and connections find you? Simple – redirect your site address. What about your email contacts? Set up forwarding! Your old business cards? Go to Kinko’s – you can have new ones in two hours. Rebranding has helped clarify our offerings, increased our SEO rankings and renewed our sense of pride in our company and services.

We are not the first company to change our name, and we certainly won’t be the last. When was the last time you looked something up on BackRub? Confused? Larry Page and Serge Brin were too, so in 1997 they decided to rename their online search engine Google, worried that people would only visit BackRub, for, well, back rubs.

Israel is already known as an oasis of technology and innovation (hello, Waze.) As Israel is rapidly becoming recognized as the ideal place to outsource, we are staking our flag as the number one source of Virtual Assistants located in Israel.

We are Virtual Assistant Israel.

Alyssa-headshot.jpgSubmitted by Alyssa