So, it sounds like you are thinking about starting your own profitable VA business, also known as a Virtual Assistant Business. I don’t blame you, it’s an AMAZING way to make a great living with maximum flexibility. I’m in my 8th year as a part-time Virtual Assistant and I’ve recently retired from my Corporate job to be a full-time Pinterest Manager. I love the freedom and flexibility of it all. And the fact that most experienced VA’s earn from $30 to $50 an hour doesn’t hurt a bit!
Possibilities for Clients for Your New Virtual Assistant Business
The beauty of this career path is that the opportunities are somewhat endless. There are so many different types of services you can offer and so many different types of clients you can work for. I typically work for varying types of bloggers, but I know a lot of people specialize in real estate professionals, small business owners, or various sales professionals. Check out my post on Pinterest for Real Estate Professionals.
I’ve recently heard a statistic that freelancers and other online workers are starting to earn more than about 60% of the traditional jobs available in the workplace. That’s kind of awesome, especially when you add in the fact of the freedom of this lifestyle to work from anywhere in the world and be able to take care of children or older parents, and be able to set your own hours, choose your own clients, and set your own rates. I know, I really love it after the restriction of so many years in the Corporate world.
Services you Can Offer for your Virtual Assistant Business
As for specialties, you can do SEO updates, write content, manage podcasts, help with bookkeeping tasks, coordinate social media posts, do web design or create graphics, and about a zillion other things. I started out doing Pinterest work almost exclusively, but now I’m starting to branch out into SEO work and setting up newsletters systems for folks (see my HIRE ME Page). I’m even doing a bit of coaching on the side for other bloggers and new VA’s. That’s one of the best things about owning a business like this, you determine your hours, the services you want to cover, and set your own pricing.
How to Get Started with your Profitable VA Business
So, how to start a virtual assistant business? I’d like to say you can just pull it together in a week, but I’d be doing you a disservice. In order to do a proper job for your potential clients, you really need to get your ducks in a row when starting a virtual assistant business. Well, there’s a lot of things you need to know and some thing to get set up. You’ll want to learn how to:
- Determine what services (or combination of services) to offer. Please make sure that you have a good relevant skill set. It’s not fair to clients to learn your craft from scratch on their dime!
- How to set up your packages to let potential clients know what services you have available, your pricing, and your experience level
- Where to find clients and how to set up your business to serve them
- How to come up with a contract to deal with confidentiality issues, payments, and manage expectations – no one ever said that a business like this wasn’t quite challenging at times, especially from a legal standpoint. I have a lawyer that I’m associated with who offers a legal package especially for virtual assistants.
- The usual financial aspects of running a business – tracking payments and expenses, figuring out your deductions and other tax issues. I do have some help for you in this area – Quick and Dirty Quickbooks and Panic-Free Tax Prep. I also just finished a post about how to Get Paid on Time as a Freelancer.
- You may also want to set up a website for your new business. I can help with that (see my HIRE ME page).
This is what I cover when I do coaching for folks who are starting a virtual assistant business. I can show you how to get the business license, set up the contracts, coach you on your packages and pricing, and give you ideas on where to find clients. Check out my VA Coaching Page if you are thinking about starting up a virtual assistant business. It really helps to have a real person who can hold you hand and help you get through those early months.
Here are some other posts you might enjoy:
Why Being a Virtual Assistant is Perfect for Introverts
How I Became a Successful Virtual Assistant
When You’re Ready to Get Coaching to Start Your VA Business
Courses/Groups/Training to Get You Started with your Profitable VA Business
If you’d rather take an online class instead of personal one-to-one coaching, I have some good options for you.
I am part of Hannah Dixon’s Digital Nomad Kit Inner Circle program and I LOVE it. It’s an open and diverse community 🏳️🌈 with members from all over the world and all walks of life. One of their mottos is “Embrace your weird” which fits in quite nicely with my “free spirit attitude” and the fact that I’m more than a little bit ADHD. I’m never going to fit into any specific box, and this group is just fine with that.
Hannah’s signature course – The Digital Nomad Kit – (soon to be renamed the Virtual Excellence Academy) has a HUGE treasure trove of lessons for the new Virtual Assistant – everything from how to set up your contracts and billing, how to impress and retain clients, how to use an endless array of tools for your business, and also some helpful resources for self-care and mental health for VA’s as well. Hannah’s lovely wife Kim leads a monthly self-care/meditation session that is very peaceful and relaxing and her Mom teaches a very powerful mindset challenge as well as other guest teachers.
If you’d like a free preview of some of the features of the kit, there is a Freebie Beginner’s Guide to Virtual Assistance you can check out. And she also runs a 5 Day Challenge for new Virtual Assistants several times each year.
These are the 3 Missions for the DNK group:
Enabling people everywhere to join the remote work revolution
Standing for fair pay, diversity and inclusion in the remote space and creating sustainable careers
Community first and prioritizing FUN!
Hannah has trained more than 10,000 Virtual Assistants with her amazing training and they are now working all over the world.
There are low monthly payments available – it’s one of the most affordable programs on the market and there are tons of tech tutorials available in her training course and there is a ton of help and support in the group. This is such a resource if you are interested in starting life as a Virtual Assistant.
Here’s a couple of helpful posts that will help you understand a bit more about the world of being a Virtual Assistant:
100 different services you can perform as a virtual assistant
How to start your VA business when you have a 9-5
This is similar to my journey. I’d been working 9-5 for more than 40 years when I started my VA business in my late 50’s – go figure! Now I’m in my 60’s and I run my business with my 70-something sister, so don’t feel like this isn’t for you, even if you tend to be on a different path than the traditional business person or big name entrepreneur. So if you need help starting a virtual assistant business, this is a terrific and affordable way to stat making money QUICKLY and without a huge investment of time or money.
In the meantime, if you need some help with Pinterest, a tune up on your SEO, or some help setting up your newsletter to sell products and services, just leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you.
Here are some other posts you may enjoy:
How I was able to Retire 7 Years Early
Freelancers – How to Get Paid on Time
Wasting Time And Energy On Tasks You Should Outsource?
This is great advice! I already do just social media management but I have considered adding some other services like bookkeeping and email management as well!
I recently started an online business for tarot reading, though it’s not quite profitable yet. I’ll consider joining your webinar!
Thanks so much. I would think these techniques would work just fine for a tarot reading business. That’s definitely thinking outside the box!
I run a virtual assistant/website business on my blog… however, I’m always up to refine and improve what I offer – and how I offer it. I’ll be sure to check into those resources. Thanks Adrian!
Yep, a VA business is where it’s at. I’m looking to go full-time this summer. Definitely check out the free webinar at least. I found it very helpful.
Since you have experience with both Abbey Ashley & Gina Horkey, whose paid course would you recommend? Gina or Abbey?
Great question! I think it depends on what you are looking for. I think Abbey has a great community, very supportive and lots of helpful folks. But her courses are very tool based – learn Trello, learn Dubsado, learn Tailwind, etc. While Gina’s courses seem very JOB focused – become a real estate VA, become a Project Manager VA, etc. I’m seriously looking at her Email course, which is on sale for 15% off this week. That’s something I’d like to try. Either one you pick, I hope you’ll be kind enough to use one of my affiliate links. Because – money! But seriously, I think they’re both good, but have a very different focus. Hope that helps.