Resources To Start Your Virtual Assistant Biz

An-Intro-into-Virtual-assisting-pin

An Intro to Virtual Assisting

Have you caught yourself daydreaming about becoming a digital nomad?
Do you find yourself envious of the influencers who just share their life on social media and make money?
Is your friend’s suggestion to join her MLM business starting to sound tempting?

Virtual Assisting is the best way to enter the world of online entrepreneurship!

In this free masterclass I answer:

  • What a VA is and does?
  • How does it even work?
  • Can Virtual Assisting replace your income?
  • What goes into starting a VA biz?
  • Independent Contractor Questions
  • Plus so much more!


Hit Play:

What is a Virtual Assistant? 

A virtual assistant is a remote freelancer who provides online services and remote support for entrepreneurs and/or small business owners. This can be small business owners, brick and mortar stores (like a yoga studio or a coffee shop), solopreneurs, e-commerce shop owners, coaches (life, business, fitness, etc). Basically anyone who runs a business and could use some support to keep their business, and ultimately LIFE, running smoothly.

What does it mean to be an Independent Contractor?

Virtual Assistants work for themselves! We work with clients not for clients. Virtual Assistants are independent contractors which means you are your own boss! You work for yourself not for your clients. This means you get to set your own rates and raise them when you want. No need to wait for a promotion! You are not told what you will make. Also, you get to set your own schedule!! Does that mean that you never work? No! But you communicate with your clients when you are working and when you are not. Legally a client is not able to tell you when to work. Some clients may have a preference, but they cannot tell you when you are supposed to be available.

On the business side of being an independent contractor, you pay your own taxes. Normally as an employee, taxes come off of your paycheck. As an independent contractor you now have to pay those taxes. You are also responsible for purchasing your own office supplies, BUT you get to expense these things when you do file taxes! You are in charge of your own benefits and retirement plan. Normally a company supplies all of these things to their employees, which feels like a perk. BUT as an independent contractor you now get to make these decisions. It might sound terrifying because it is unfamiliar, but it is also very empowering to get to make these decisions!

The four main areas you can offer VA support to your clients in are:

  1. General Admin
  2. Social Media Support
  3. Design Creation
  4. Technical Support

General Admin

This category covers the most obvious tasks of a VA, what most people think of when they think “assistant.” You already do general admin in your own life, so this is definitely a service you could offer! Tasks can range from:

  • Email Management
  • Calendar management
  • Booking Travel
  • Personal Tasks
  • Support Email/Customer Service

Social Media 

Almost every single entrepreneur you work with will have a social media presence that they want to build or need to maintain, but a lot of them don’t want to manage it. This is where you come in! Tasks can range from:

  • Scheduling Posts on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
  • Facebook Group Management
  • Responding To Facebook or Instagram Messages
  • Responding to Facebook or Instagram Comments

Design 

This is one of those skills that you either have or you don’t, and you typically know where you fall. Do you have an eye for design? Tasks can range from:

  • Simple Graphics for Social Media
  • Logo Creation
  • PowerPoint Design
  • And Everything Visual…

Tech Support

Once again, evvvveryone has tech and needs help managing it so that things run smoothly. If you like puzzles, this one’s for you! Tasks can range from:

  • Website Management
  • Website Creation
  • Webinar Setup
  • Blog Management
  • Podcast Editing & Uploading

You can focus on 1 or support in all! 

I’m assuming you have experience in some of these areas! You can start offering these services TODAY and gain more skills at the same time!!

Who hires Virtual Assistants?

The short answer is ANYONE! But, here are some more specific examples:

  • Online businesses
  • Etsy shop owners
  • Bloggers
  • Coaches
  • Authors
  • Brick & Mortar Stores
    • Yoga Studios
    • Coffee Shops
    • Stores 

Plus, clients from anywhere in the world can hire you as a VA!! 

Baker Analogy

Let’s say one of your clients is a baker. They LOVE baking cookies! They get into business because their cookies are awesome and they love baking them! However, when you start a baking business, there’s admin, there’s social media, there’s booking appointments, there’s customer service, there is all of this back-end business stuff that distracts them from baking cookies. BUT when they are able to hire a virtual assistant to help handle all of the back-end business stuff, they get to focus on the reason they went into business in the first place: baking cookies!

This analogy applies for any business! When I say you can work for anyone, I really mean it!!

 

How many clients should I have?

As many as you can handle!! You’re not an employee, so you don’t work for just 1 person. You are a contractor, and like a housing contractor, you can be working on more than 1 house (or client) at a time! You can be working with multiple clients at the same time. Not all clients need you for 40 hours a week. Some clients only need you for 5 hours a week. Some may need you for 10 hours a week. 

That’s another great thing about being a virtual assistant! A business owner can hire a virtual assistant for 40 hours a month instead of hiring a full time employee! You can have 1 big client (30+ hours/week) or preferably, you have a few clients (5 hours/week, 10 hours/week, and 15 hours/week) to diversify your income.

When you work for one employer and get let go, your single source of income is gone. However, when you are a virtual assistant and diversify your income, you still have additional sources of income from other clients if a client has to let you go.

 

What does the day-to-day of a Virtual Assistant look like?

Do we look like we are always frolicking around and we don’t work and somehow money just appears in our bank accounts? No, we still work! We just get to work from home, the beach, or from the airport because we work through wifi, so it is possible to travel and be flexible with where you work. Everyone’s situation and goals are different so everyone’s schedule is going to look different, but let me take you through one example of a typical day: 

  • You wake up when you want! You can either be at home or wherever you are traveling.
  • You have breakfast, workout, and do your morning routine.
  • You return to your work space, maybe this is a home office, the beaches of Bali, or your couch. You begin working on CLIENT A’s tasks for a couple of hours
  • You take a break and have lunch and perhaps run some errands or take a walk.
  • You return to work a couple of hours on CLIENT B’s tasks
  • Finally you finish out the day on CLIENT C’s tasks.
  • Now you can relax and enjoy you evening!

But it’s flexible!!! So if something comes up you can: 

  • Work from the auto shop
  • Work at night if you want to ski during the day
  • Work ahead if you have a trip planned
  • Work in the passenger seat while your partner is driving 
  • Work at your kid’s soccer game on the sidelines

Myths about Virtual Assisting

it is a Scam.

Sometimes when I talk about virtual assisting, people flag it as a scam. When I first looked at virtual assisting, I wanted to say “It’s too good to be true,” but in reality it was just something I wasn’t familiar with. There is a lot of fear and unknown when we see something unfamiliar. Rather than jumping to the wrong conclusion, let’s ask questions and do some research.

Virtual assisting is not a scam, it is also not a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme is when you are getting paid to enroll more people into something and you profit from the people underneath you. This is not what virtual assisting is. Virtual assisting is also not a MLM. It is not multi-level marketing. Virtual assisting is someone who assists a business remotely for a certain amount of time in exchange for money. It is a service. 

Virtual assisting is NOT a scam! It is a service.

 

You need a website to get started.

You do not need a website to start offering virtual assistant services. You do not need a fancy Instagram account. You do not need a Facebook business page in order to find clients and become a virtual assistant. If you think you need these things, here is your permission from me that you don’t. All of these things are just excuses that are delaying you from getting started on your journey. 

Most virtual assistants that I mentor and coach do not start with a website. In fact, some of them already had a website and took it down because I explained to them how it can really hurt your business if the website isn’t good. Rather, I coach my students on how to find clients using their VA Profile.

Creating a website is an excuse standing in your way of getting started as a virtual assistant. You do not need one!

 

You need online skills.

You do not need to know how to code a website. You do not need to know how to get an Instagram account to 10,000 followers. You are supporting a client. If these are skills that you develop along the way, awesome!! But you do not need them to get started! This means you do not need all of these certificates, or to purchase a bunch of skills courses before you begin.

Think about the basic skills you can offer as a virtual assistant.  Start by offering the ones you know you can already do, like calendar management or commenting on social media posts. Everything else you want to know, you can learn after you get started! Your clients may even pay you to learn one of these more advanced skills you are wanting to acquire!!

You are never going to learn enough to build up your own confidence to get started, so just start!

 

You need a niche to find clients.

When you are first starting, you do not have to pick a niche, you can if you want, but it’s not necessary. There are niches that exist that you do not even know about yet! How are you supposed to choose a niche before you even know about it yet?

You already have skills to start offering as a virtual assistant, then as you are playing the field, you will find what niches you really enjoy!

Start with an open mind!

What goes into Starting a Virtual Assistant Business?

There’s 4 main steps: 

  1. Square away the business fundamentals
  2. Find Clients
  3. Discovery Calls and Onboarding
  4. Next-level marketing your business

Business Fundamentals

This is the scaffolding of your business! You need to take care of banking. You have to start tracking your income and your expenses. You will need to create an invoicing system, so that you can start taking payments from clients. You need to know if you should register your business or not, and if you do when do you need to register it! You also need to think about your agreements and contract between you and your clients. The business fundamentals also includes the essential tools and systems to be able to communicate with clients. The business foundation is the same whether you are a VA or a freelance graphic designer.

 

Find Clients

Now that the business foundation is set up, it is time to find clients! If you aren’t going to start with a website, create your VA Profile that you can send to potential clients so they understand who you are and what services you can offer. 

You need to learn where to find clients and where NOT to find clients! Then you need to know how to apply for jobs to sound professional and reliable. You need to learn how to network and how to build connections and find clients within your own network. 

 

Discovery Calls and Client Onboarding

You will need to learn how to conduct a discovery call. There is a difference between a discovery call and your typical job interview!

After you find clients, you will need to know how to onboard a client remotely. What is that agreement and contract you are going the send them? How will you communicate with clients? What boundaries are you going to set for your working relationship? These are all questions you need to think about to create a positive onboarding experience for both you and the client.

 

Marketing Your Business

Finally, the next step is next level marketing for your business. This may mean marketing your business on Instagram or creating a freebie and building an email list. You could even think about running Facebook ads. You can learn how to lean into the power of referrals!

 

Throughout all these steps and by acquiring more clients, there’s also an invisible step that is happening: you are gaining more skills!!

Join my exclusive VIP list to be the first to hear about my free upcoming Masterclasses!! Plus get exclusive Early Bird deals on Bootcamps and Group Programs!

See you next time!

How the F*ck Did I Get Here?

On today’s episode, I’m sharing how my life path appears so askew that one may think I’ve been drunk this entire time… Hit Play: SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST All my businesses have been more than 10 years in the making… and I finally feel old

Read More »

I Was Accused of Trademark Infringement

On today’s episode, I’ll be reading you word-for-word the threatening notice I got about unintentional trademark infringement.  Hit Play: SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST When I opened my DMs and saw the accusation, my gut DROPPED I had just launched a new coaching program and hap

Read More »

Business Is Too Hard For Most People

On today’s episode, I’m going to remove the sugar coating and tell the truth of why business is too hard for most people. Hit Play: SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST You have to be borderline psychotic with a hint of masochism to get into business.  I

Read More »

An Intro to Virtual Assisting

Resources To Start Your Virtual Assistant Biz Have you caught yourself daydreaming about becoming a digital nomad? Do you find yourself envious of the influencers who just share their life on social media and make money?Is your friend’s suggestion to join her MLM business starting

Read More »

How Much Money Do Virtual Assistants Make?

Resources To Start Your Virtual Assistant Biz It’s VERY likely that you are not earning as much $$$ as you could be! A lot of women under price and undervalue the business services they offer, but I am here to tell you: NO LONGER!! This

Read More »

How to Start An Online Business for Free

Resources To Start Your Virtual Assistant Biz You heard me right! In today’s Youtube video I tell you exactly how to start your new Virtual Assistant business WITHOUT spending money. Hit Play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SimYqtuEA5k SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL 3 Questions to Ask Yourself What is

Read More »

Tackling Financial Fears in Your Virtual Assistant Business

Resources To Start Your Virtual Assistant Biz Are you scared to… Invest in yourself? In this Youtube video, I talk about tackling your financial fears so you can launch your Virtual Assistant biz. Hit Play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daggrISKHis SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL Here is the thing

Read More »

GET YOUR FIRST
Virtual Assistant Client 

So you’ve read all the blogs, half-way started building your website, created a FB biz page… and you still don’t have any clients.

Download this free guide for PRACTICAL advice on getting your first client ASAP (without the headache and confusion of trying to do 50 new things at once). Your first client could be just around the corner! 

Quotes from Alumni

Check out our VA mentoring!

No matter where you are on your Virtual Assistant journey, we can help! 

Most Recent Episode!

More Questions about becoming a VA?

GET YOUR FIRST

Virtual Assistant

CLIENT

Download this free guide for PRACTICAL advice on getting your first client ASAP (without the headache and confusion of trying to do 50 new things at once). 

    I understand that by downloading this guide I am opting into an email newsletter subscription. All emails include an unsubscribe link, you may opt-out at any time. Read our Privacy Policy to see how your data is collected, used, and stored.