How to Become a Virtual Assistant

Start Your Own Business from Home

Laura Briggs

• Publisher: Author Academy Elite
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781647464912
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Karriere

Freedom. Flexibility. Income. It's all possible as a virtual assistant.

Did you know office, research, and data entry skills mean that you don't have to report to an office anymore? That you can work instead on your own schedule with clients you choose?

With more than 57 million freelancers in the U.S., there's never been a better time to start your own business. Virtual assistant work is one of the easiest and most profitable freelance side hustles or careers.

As a virtual assistant, you can make money on your own schedule by choosing to offer in-demand services to entrepreneurs and small business owners who have too much on their plates and not enough time.

Get the action steps you need to get started and begin your location-independent success story working online as a freelance virtual assistant.

In How to Become a Virtual Assistant, you'll discover how to

· Decide what services to offer and brush up skills quickly and affordably

· Find clients and market your new business

· Treat your business like a business from day one

It's time to join the freelance revolution.

Laura Briggs is a two-time TEDx speaker, top-rated Upwork freelancer, marketing director, award-winning business author, and coach to thousands of freelancers around the world. She's also the founder of Operation Freelance, a nonprofit teaching military spouses and veterans how to break into remote freelance work. She lives with her husband, John, wherever his career has most recently taken them.

1
What Is a VA?

If you want to work from home, you’re not alone. The fact that you picked up this book shows you’re looking for a flexible, freedom-based way to build your business around your life instead of your life around your business.

We live in an incredible time—with a little bit of training, passion, and effort on your part, you can set up your business online for very little money and very little risk.

Being a virtual assistant is a great way to earn extra income. Even if you already have a stable source of passive income, it’s a good stay at home role to leverage for an extra bit of cash. And if you don’t have a regular salary, virtual assistance is a role that you can make full-time.

The most common entry-level questions regarding VA work that I see flying around a lot are: “What is a virtual assistant?” or “what does a virtual assistant do?”

A virtual assistant is essentially a person who works from home, communicating online or over the phone (hence the virtual part) to help run an individual’s blog or business. Running a business is a lot of work, so hiring someone becomes a top priority for busy entrepreneurs.

There are dozens of kinds of tasks you can offer as a virtual assistant, all of which will allow you to learn new skills or even specialize in the kinds of tasks that appeal most to you. If you’ve ever worked in an office or volunteered on a project where you’ve done administrative tasks, you can probably leverage those into a side hustle or even a full-time career as a virtual assistant.

Is Being a VA Right for You?

Becoming a virtual assistant is a rewarding way to have a career you’ll love waking up to every morning.

Before becoming a virtual assistant and freelance writer, I dreaded Mondays because that meant going back to the job I dreaded. I used to call this feeling “Sunday anxiety. “I don’t miss it, and now, I enjoy waking up on Monday mornings, even after a three-week vacation so I can get back into the swing of things.

Here’s what’s great about being a VA—you can have any motivation for working in this field, and none of them are wrong. You can also align the size of your business with what you hope to accomplish. Need something to generate extra money that will only cost you five hours a week? You can do that. Want to put in the hard work to scale this to a full-time career? You can do that too.

Read on to learn four of the biggest reasons you should consider becoming a VA.

Reason #1: Flexibility

The flexibility to work for yourself is invaluable. It gives a tremendous amount of flexibility when you’re a parent, a caregiver, or are only able to contribute a few hours per day. Holding down a typical nine to five job can be frustrating and practically impossible in all these situations, but working as a virtual assistant empowers you to work on your time without any additional stress.

Unless you have scheduled calls or deadlines, most of your clients won’t care if you complete the work at 2:00 a.m. or 10:00 p.m. They care about meeting deadlines, and thanks to pre-scheduling and draft tools, there are very few times you’ll need to be physically present online as a virtual assistant. (Of course, clarify that’s the case with all the clients you onboard!)

Reason #2: Freedom

The number one advantage of owning my business is the freedom it allows me. What do I mean by this? My ability to choose the clients I want to work with and to turn down those who are a poor fit gives me tremendous decision-making responsibility over my day-to-day business, which also helps keep me sane.

Running an online business can quickly grow out of control if you’re hiring nightmare clients or working with people who are simply too challenging. Over time, you’ll grow in identifying these red flag clients before you even work together. Having this skillset will simplify your life and excite you to work each day when you have clients you care about.

Reason #3: More Time

When you run your online business properly, every hour of work can benefit you because it’ll allow you to pursue other goals. For example, as I write this book, I’m working on another book, walking five miles a day, and developing my physical endurance. None of these options were realistic for me before working online as a virtual assistant and a freelance writer.

Previously, I spent my time worrying about getting to and from work. I had to cram in all of my errands after work, which meant I exercised before I left, and had to include enough time for my commute. This juggling ate up all of my day, and I’d arrive home drained and exhausted by a meaningless job, which left me with zero motivation to work on these other issues. Now, I set up my schedule to work on my time and only select clients I truly enjoy working with.

Reason #4: Cashing in on a Hot Opportunity

We’re in a time where more people are starting online businesses. Therefore, there is more demand for help, and employers are more receptive to hiring someone to work in a virtual capacity.” Entrepreneurs and bloggers have a greater knowledge of virtual assistants and their roles and are learning how much a virtual assistant can help build and grow their business.

Starting a virtual assistant business can be one of the most exciting decisions and opportunities of your life, but it can also feel overwhelming if you aren’t sure what to do or what steps to take first.

The Internet is a very popular place for business today, and now more than ever, small businesses and entrepreneurs need help to accomplish their day-to-day tasks. Compared with some other freelance avenues like web design, there are fewer barriers to entry because you probably already have all the skills you need to succeed as a VA. The #1 thing I hear from other entrepreneurs in my field is they don’t know where to look when they need to hire a VA! That means the demand is there.

Five Steps to Launching a VA Career

There are five main things to keep in mind as you think about dipping your toes in the water of virtual assistant work: knowing the market, knowing your core offer, determining how much time you have to dedicate to this, focusing on clients, and getting good at conversions.

Step #1: Know the Marketplace

There is no point in marketing yourself to potential clients if you don’t know what people in the marketplace want. Doing some research helps to ground you and tell you if your idea is a good one. You want to make sure there is a demand for your particular type of offering before stepping out there and making it your thing.

It can be a big mistake to invest money and time into a website, branding, and other materials aligned with an offer no one is interested in. To get a sense of what is most popular in the world of virtual assistants today, check out popular websites like Guru, Freelancer, or Upwork.com. You’ll see plenty of job bids posting information about virtual assistants and what types of services are most in-demand.

From my experience, the following are the services that can make a virtual assistant practically irresistible to hire:

• Social media management
• WordPress management and content marketing management
• Personal life management including scheduling, completing travel requirements, and other personal details
• Online research
• Advanced software tools like Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Keap, ConvertKit

There are many different types of tasks a virtual assistant can do, so you need to match your skillset with marketplace’s demand. This is the best way to identify how to get started.

Step #2: Determine Your Core Offer

Some individuals focus specifically on one particular industry, such as serving solo entrepreneurs with online businesses. Others might choose only to handle specific tasks. For example, some virtual assistants are experts with Pinterest and other social media strategies. Others are skilled in online research or related aspects of their business.

You can certainly be a generalist and accomplish many of these tasks at once. Still, it can also be beneficial to strategize and narrow your market to a particular industry or type of project you’ll focus on. As you grow in experience in these various categories, you’ll determine what you like and don’t like, which can help you refine your decision about the services you’ll offer. Think about your core offer and how you’ll work—by project or on an hourly basis.

Most virtual assistants start on an hourly basis, and it can be beneficial for you when you’re not yet sure how long it takes you to do certain projects. Some clients, however, prefer to pay a flat rate per project instead of hourly. For example, a social media manager might offer a flat rate service of several hundred dollars per month for basic social media. However, they may also do other virtual assistant tasks on an hourly basis. It’s important to think about whether you want to keep track of your hours and pitch yourself as an hourly virtual assistant.

Step #3: Identify Your Time Commitment

This is one of the most important aspects of setting up your virtual business. You need to think carefully about whether you want to work part-time or full-time and how many hours you can dedicate. In the beginning, you’ll spend a significant amount of time doing marketing work instead of working for clients. This means you’ll be doing a lot of what’s known as “unbillable hours. “These unbillable hours are necessary to build your client base.

As you grow and build your client base, this will change. You’ll spend less time on marketing and more time working for clients. Ideally, your good impression upon your current clients has led them to refer you to others or booked yourself up so much you don’t need to market.

In the beginning, however, you need to set aside specific goals associated with your marketing. For example, you might spend a couple of hours per week marketing your services like making phone calls, sending emails, visiting job boards, or blogging on your website to attract clients. You also want to be realistic about the time you can dedicate to create and deliver client work. Falling behind and missing deadlines is the number one way to push a current client away.

Do you only have two hours per week? You probably won’t be able to work on many projects. However, if you have ten hours per week, you can spend those first couple of weeks pitching and trying to land clients and then switching over to spend as many of those ten hours on client projects as possible.

Step #4: Focus in on Clients

One great way to start your virtual assistant business is to think about how many clients you want to work with and who they are. A lot of little projects can add up to a lucrative career as a virtual assistant, but it can also be overwhelming to track all of these various client needs. For example, you might prefer to work with a handful of in-depth clients. Think carefully about how often you interact with these clients.

Working for one major client with a very high-value contract could mean that you need to touch base with this person every day. Is this something you desire or have time for? Also, think about where these clients are coming from. How are they being introduced to your world? Do you have a marketing system set up to bring them in regularly?

Considering your ideal client will help you identify someone who is a perfect fit for you as opposed to someone who doesn’t belong on your client roster.

Step #5: B...