So you’re wondering how to become a virtual assistant! I can assure you right away that if you have a good amount of self-motivation, organizational skills and the ability to be logical about your processes, you will likely make a great virtual assistant. In this blog I’m going to share with you the basics on how to get started without the confusion and overwhelm.
1. Determine How Much You Need to Make
What is your financial goal? What are you trying to accomplish as you become a virtual assistant? Are you a student wanting to make some extra cash, a stay-at-home, work-from-home parent wanting to contribute to finances, or are you a full-blown single parent needing to cover everything?
Write down all of your expected expenses Write down the number that works for you. When I first started my own business, my number was $3,000.
2. Take Stock of Your Skills
What are your strengths? What AREN’T you good at? Making sure you know your strengths and weaknesses is VERY important. You don’t want to end up hating life because you’re having to learn new skills in an area that you can’t stand. For me, I originally hated social media – I know! Now it’s a major aspect of what I do on a daily basis but it’s only because I learned bit by bit over time how to integrate my strengths into it while working with incredible clients who made it fun and super rewarding. Here is an example of some skills that you can start off utilizing to make an income online:
- Data Entry
- Bookkeeping
- Transcription
- Editing
- Ghostwriting
- Customer Support
- Client/Customer Material Creation
- Hiring Management/Support
- Calendar Management
- CRM Management
- Graphic Design
- E-book Creation
- Blog Support
- Website Design/Maintenance
- SEO Management
- Social Media Management
- IG Management
- FB Ads Manager
- FB Groups Mediator
- Pinterest Manager
- E-mail Marketing Manager
- Podcast Management/Support
- Sales Pages and Funnels
- Online Course Creator
- Raw CSS/HTML Coding
- Audio/Video Editing
- Event Planning
- Travel Assistant
- Online Store Set-up/Management
What are you good at? What sounds enjoyable to you? Take stock of where you would like to go and find opportunities that help you learn the skills you want to learn.
3. Determine How Many Hours You Can Dedicate to Online Work
Be Realistic here. A lot of the time we type-A overachievers will throw out a number that is above and beyond what we can sanely handle. If you have a full course load and are working, or have 3 kids that you’re trying to homeschool (screw that – even if you have 1 kid who’s in school during the day), you NEED to be realistic. Don’t block schedule your time if you have a newborn that feeds at odd times throughout the day, and don’t expect to work until 10pm and then start work at 4am. Be smart about it and treat yourself well.
4. Set your price
I started out at $20/hr. Honestly, I was nervous about that number. Would anyone hire me for that much? YES. They did, many times. And they loved my work. When you set a price a little above your comfort zone you will strive to better yourself and make yourself worth it. If you want to grow, you have to inspire yourself emotionally, physically and financially.
Be ready to prove your price though – if you’re starting out in data entry, the chances are that you will have to charge a bit less than that because the competition is fierce as an entry-level skill.
If you’re an amazing graphic designer with a great portfolio, increase your price – make your work worth it to you to give your clients what they need.
Packages work well for some people too ie. $250/month for Pinterest Management. It took me awhile to offer packages but when I did some clients preferred these, essentially to ‘set it and forget it.’ They could trust that what they paid for was taken care of with occasional updates from me as opposed to guessing how long something would take and never knowing exactly what could get taken care of on an hourly basis.
5. Find Clients
You may already know some people who need help in some way, or, like me, you may have to scramble as the result of a job loss and have no prospects in sight. I used Upwork to find all of my clients initially. It took hours of writing proposals to find the right clients, but it works. Just like anything worthwhile, it takes work, confidence and an unrelenting attitude.
Be smart about it. Represent yourself professionally with spotless spelling and grammar, positive, friendly tone and confidence in your abilities. Find the clients that you are authentically interested in working with.
That’s pretty much it in the beginning…
As you grow, you can create a website for yourself, starting blogging in your field and as you learn more skills, use those to grow your VA business as well and increase your services, skills and prices.
