SmartPA : Tracey Jones on Her Second-Act Career as a SmartPA Partner

In this video, SmartPA UK partner Tracey Jones features in a Partner Spotlight — a focused short-form profile of her career pivot from twenty years inside a family optical-practices business into a SmartPA virtual assistant business that gives her ownership, flexibility, and the work-life rhythm she had been missing. Jones's story is one of the most useful in the SmartPA testimonial library for prospective partners considering a second-act career. She spent two decades inside a Cheshire and South Manchester family business her father had built, staying on for two years after her father sold the business and being appointed Yorkshire regional manager during that handover period. The travel and the early-morning commutes ultimately drove her to hand in her notice without a clear next step, planning to look for a PA or EA role. It was Jones's father — looking at franchise opportunities online during a family holiday — who spotted SmartPA and recommended she look into it. The franchise idea immediately appealed: she could keep the support work she enjoyed, but as an owned business with her name on the door, working from anywhere with just a laptop and a phone. The onboarding she describes is a clean SmartPA experience: smooth, guided, with thorough training, an interview with a SmartPA ambassador, peer conversations with existing partners, mentorship structure post-launch, and head-office support throughout. After twelve months working from home she invested in a small shared office five minutes from her house and now works with nine regular clients across admin, invoicing, expenses, and social media management. A SmartPA partner can build a second-act career on the foundation of decades of prior business experience — Tracey Jones is doing it.