Did you know it’s possible to get started as a Virtual Assistant without being highly skilled in a profession? Virtual Assistant opportunities have become increasingly popular over the past few years, with a staggering 3 million jobs currently being held by these assistants. With that, many job opportunities have opened, finding work as a VA can be hard – but not impossible!
We’ve put together this guide to help you find and secure your first VA job.
Who exactly is a Virtual Assistant?
A Virtual Assistant (VA) is a person who takes care of individuals, tasks or projects for their clients. They help with whatever the client needs, be that writing documents, making phone calls, creating websites, social media management, admin tasks, and more. Since they’re not there in-person (meaning they don’t have to deal with the minutiae of managing an office), they can provide their clients with a lot more work than they could otherwise do on their own.
Here are 9 Tips to help you started as a Virtual Assistant?
1. Identify your skills
The first step is to decide what type of work you’d like to do. Every Virtual Assistant has unique skills to offer. You need to be computer savvy, have great communication skills, editorial skills and also, great organization and time management skills.
Once you have these then you can decide whether you want to offer your services traditionally via an agency, through the internet or by word-of-mouth advertising? Or perhaps you want to focus solely on developing skills in customer service and other customer-focused areas, such as product management and design.
2. Determine how much time you need for each type of work
Traditional agency work allows you to set your own hours, and take as few or as many projects as you choose. Depending on how fast each project flows through, you might have time to work on a number of different tasks at once. However, because the outsourced work is more established than freelance work and available jobs are plentiful, agencies prefer full-time virtual assistants.
3. Pricing structure
Once you have decided what services you’re going to offer, then you can set your pricing structure, this can be through packages or hourly rates. Once you have your price, it’s good to come to an agreement with your client on how you’re going to be receiving your payment and when.
4. Equipment
Deciding on the services that you’re going to offer to your clients will also help you decide on the equipment that you require delivering your services. Sometimes a Virtual Assistant may only require a computer with Internet connection, headphones and a smartphone to get started. But just in case your services require an additional monitor, or phones, you need to budget for such.
5. Build a portfolio
Every Virtual Assistant should have a professional portfolio. This is where you will showcase your clients’ feedback, examples of your work and reviews. You will get more and well-paying clients when you showcase your skills.
6. Search for jobs
For you to succeed as a Virtual Assistant, you need to be proactive and more aggressive while searching for jobs. You may have to accept low paying jobs when getting started so that you can be able to build your portfolio as you gain confidence and experience.
You can ask for referrals from your friends or search for job openings online on job listing platforms or even on freelancing sites.
7. Market yourself
Your success as a Virtual Assistant will entirely depend on your ability to market your services. Utilize social media platforms and professional platforms like LinkedIn to make you visible online.
Also, creating your personal website can help you to market yourself and showcase your skills and portfolio to potential clients.
8. Specialization
It’s good not to be a jack of all trades and hence specialization. There are a number of Virtual assistants niches to specialize on. Once you have specialized, you will be able to charge better rates and retain your clients by focusing on a particular market niche.
Focus on one niche and develop the skills so that you can start marketing yourself as an expert in that particular area.
9. Professional Training
You might as well consider getting professional Virtual Assistant training in order for you to understand how to run a VA business professional. If you need guidance on how to get started, you can sign up for our online VA course – Learn How to Become an On-Demand Pro-Virtual Assistant
Conclusion
The internet has a lot of job opportunities for Virtual Assistants. If you’re a go-getter, and you have the right skills, you will definitely make a career as a remote VA. Consider joining our online course so that you can get professional guidance on how to get started. WhatsApp me on +254-739-317-633 we chat the way forward.
