by James Sowers |
Last Updated: August 14, 2019 This post may be sponsored or may contain affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission, at no additional cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Read the full disclosure.
It’s no secret that becoming a virtual assistant is one of the best work from home jobs you can do..
But if you’re like a lot of people, the whole idea of setting things up and then making it work is a little overwhelming (especially when there is nobody to guide you).
That’s where this blog post comes in. In just moments you’ll discover how to become a virtual assistant with no experience and earn $20-100/hour.
All while working from the comfort of your home.
If that sounds interesting, let’s hop into it.
What Exactly Is A Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant is someone who provides various services to businesses while working from home.
VAs are usually hired by online businesses and entrepreneurs that need assistance in their day-to-day work but don’t want to hire full-time staffs.
The reason being, it becomes cost-efficient and and saves time in the long run.
And because more and more businesses are getting online, the demand for VAs are going up and above rapidly.
Benefits Of Working As A Virtual Assistant
There are endless benefits of any work from home job, and being a virtual assistant is no different.
Here are some of the many benefits of working as a VA:
#1 Freedom
There is nothing better than feeling relaxed and stress-free while working, and becoming a virtual assistant gives you just that.
You can:
- Set your own working hours
- Take breaks in between whenever you feel like
- Take things slow and steady
- Take much needed rest when you’re unwell
- Wear whatever you want
- Cuddle with your pets whenever you want to 😉
And most importantly, you have the freedom to charge what you’re worth.
#2 Ability To Work From Anywhere
Being a VA means you can work from anywhere in the world.
Be it from your bed, your backyard, nearby coffee shop or how about another country?
All you need is a laptop/computer and an internet connection.
#3 Low Investment
Starting a VA business won’t cost you an arm and a leg.
In fact, all you need is a laptop and an internet connection, along with few tools to get started.
You might also want to invest in a good course initially, and all of that combined won’t break your wallet.
What Makes A Great VA?
There are some skills and personality traits that can take you a long way as a virtual assistant.
Having these qualities will not only help you land new clients, but also keep the present ones for long and good.
These are:
#1 Reliability
No matter how experienced and qualified you are, you’ll miss out on good clients if you aren’t reliable.
VAs are supposed to make their clients’ life easier by handling and completing tasks on time without the need to be reminded or given extra instructions again and again.
Truth to be told: They just won’t waste their time checking with you every hour because that’s why they hire VAs – to save time.
I’ve come across quite a few stories about clients having a bad experience with their VAs. Some disappeared after taking the assignment and some just wouldn’t start working without reminders.
You don’t want to be one of those.
#2 Communication Skills
Being able to communicate with your clients in a professional manner is one of the most important skills.
VAs with good communication skills are more likely to land a client because they’re able to persuade them through their talks.
#3 Resourceful
As a VA you should be able to research and clear your own doubts rather than asking your clients obvious questions.
The internet is huge and I believe there is a 99% chance the answer to your question can be found online.
Take it to Google.
#4 Organized
If your client is pinging you asking for updates, you need to be more organized and do things on time.
There may be times when you have to handle more than one task at a time, and how you do it is totally up to you.
That’s why being organized is really important. You need to be able to plan things ahead of time and schedule tasks so you can complete them off without fail.
Types Of Services You Can Offer As A Virtual Assistant
As a new VA things can get a bit overwhelming when you’re trying to identify your skills and come up with services.
To make things easier, I’ve listed a few services below that’ll give you an idea:
#1 Social Media Management
Managing and growing social media profile is a brilliant way to promote a business but it sure takes a hell lot of time and dedication.
And if your clients start doing it on their own, they won’t have time to handle other important aspects of their business.
That’s when a VA specialized in social media management comes in.
As a virtual assistant who manages social media profiles, you’d need to:
- Setup social media profiles from scratch with their brand identity
- Come up with interesting posts and images to keep the followers engaged
- Interact with the followers
- Setup social media scheduling tools like tailwind, hootsuite, brandbooster, buffer
- etc
#2 Blog Management
Blogging looks pretty easy from the outside, but in reality it’s nowhere near being easy.
It’s so much more than just writing a few pieces of content.
And because it’s a tough job, blog management VAs are highly in demand.
You’d need to handle tasks such as:
- Writing and editing posts
- Optimizing posts for SEO
- Linking to internal and external sources
- Designing graphics
- Interacting with readers via comments
- etc
#3 Email Management
Email marketing is an important part of running a business because it lets you stay in touch and build relationships with customers.
And because a tremendous amount of emails are exchanged daily, it becomes a tough task to manage them all. That’s why they hire a VA to manage it all.
As an email management VA, you’d have to take care of:
- Deleting unnecessary emails
- Giving emails a label to categorize and access them quick
- Unsubscribe from unwanted lists
- Marking important emails as starred
- etc
#4 Customer Support Via Email
Email customer support is a part of every business. You won’t see a business online that doesn’t provide a support email address to reach out to.
VAs who offer this service are highly in demand. The tasks include:
- Replying and solving problems of the customers
- Issuing refunds
- Reaching out to customers for their feedback on the product/service
- Report problems of customers to the team for future betterment
#5 Bookkeeping
Bookkeeping is not the easiest job in the world and surely not what business owners tend to do themselves.
As a bookkeeping VA, you would be in charge of:
- Issuing refunds
- Making sure bills are paid off without fail
- Creating invoices
- Calculating and clearing staff salaries
- Preparing taxes
- etc
You can read more about how to become a bookkeeper from home here.
#6 Online Store Management
These days starting an online store has become a popular business model, especially after the rise of platforms like Shopify.
More and more people are opting to start their online store and that too in the form of dropshipping.
That means the rise of online store management VAs. The tasks include:
- Setting up the store
- Uploading products and their images + write descriptions
- Setting up payment gateways
- Creating coupons
- etc
Not enough? Download this list of 150+ VA services you can offer.
How To Become A Virtual Assistant With No Experience
Now that you know the basics of becoming a virtual assistant from home, it’s time to dive into the major chunk of it.
On a side note: You can choose to learn things in greater details by enrolling in the 30 days or less to virtual assistant success. It’s a course by a successful mom who earns a living as a VA from home. I highly recommend this!
Moving on, below I’ve broken down the process into tiny sections so that you can easily understand how to become a virtual assistant with no experience.
#1 Come Up With A Name
Deciding on a name for your virtual assistant business is actually the most fun part because you get a feeling of starting a new chapter in your life.
Here are some pointers that makes a good name:
- Easy to pronounce
- Not too long. Should be easily memorable
- Contains a tagline
You could also use a tool like Shopify’s business name generator to get some ideas. A simple search for “virtual assistant” landed me these names:
By using this tool you can come up with rough ideas and then mix it with your imagination to finalize a good name.
NOTE: You also want to make sure your name is available, so before finalizing it don’t forget to check if it’s already registered.
#2 Decide Your Service
Deciding your service can be pretty easy if you’ve already identified your skills.
For those who’re clueless, you can start by writing down all the things which you can do and enjoy.
Also, don’t forget to download this list of 150+ services you can offer as a VA.
Start with something that is easy and comfortable for you.
Pro tip: You can offer multiple services and not necessarily one.
Another option would be learning a new skill from scratch from Skillshare.
They have thousands of courses on ANY topic. Be it social media management, blog management or anything. You name it.
You can get your first 2 months FREE, which means 18,000 classes on various topics at no cost. Click here to get your FREE membership.
#3 Make It Legal
Depending on where you live, there might certain rules of running a virtual assistant business.
You might need a business license or fill out a DBA form.
You can either start out as a sole proprietor or set up a LLC.
This step can be a bit confusing so I recommend seeking professional advice to make sure you’re doing things right.
#4 Define Your Ideal Clients
After you’re done with the legal stuff, it’s time to move forward and figure out your target clients.
Start by asking yourself who would need your services?
- Is it bloggers?
- Is it online store owners?
- Is it online course instructors?
- Or every business?
Once you know who to target, you can look for clients in the right places.
#5 Create A Website
Having a website as a virtual assistant is really important because it will make you look professional in front of your potential clients.
Here’s a perfect example of Jessica Roop’s website:
It takes hardly 10-15 mins to start a website. You can buy a domain and hosting from Siteground, which is my favorite and the best hosting company for starters.
Then all you do is install WordPress, add a theme and write the content. That’s it.
I’ve discussed more about this on my post how to start a wordpress website
#6 Look For Clients
Once you’ve set up your website, the next thing you need to do is figure out how to get clients as a virtual assistant.
There are quite a lot of ways to find jobs, but below I’ve listed my top picks:
Upwork: This is a freelance job marketplace where clients from all around the world post requirements and freelancers/VAs bid on it.
LinkedIn: A mix of social media and job board, LinkedIn is really effective when it comes to finding high-paying clients.
Facebook Groups: This is literally my favorite place to look for clients. You can join groups dedicated to online business owners like:
- Bloggers
- Online store owners
- Social media influencers
- etc
These people usually need help with their business.
Here’s a requirement I came across just now:
Literally hundreds of requirements are posted daily across these groups. You just need to look in the right places.
Reach Out To Friends: Letting your friends know about your service is a great way to start spreading the word.
Why?
Because even if they don’t require your service, they’re likely to pass your contact details to the people who might be needing help.
This gives the perfect head-start to your virtual assistant business.
#7 Promote Your Service
Promotion should never be stopped, no matter if you’re getting clients or not.
While promotion methods like running ads or buying billboards are expensive, there are some effective and inexpensive ways you can promote your virtual assistant business. Those are:
Use Business Cards: As old school as it sounds, business cards are still an effective way to promote your business. You can get a professional business card designed for as low as $5 on Fiverr.
After that, be sure to carry your business card wherever you go. You never know when you might meet someone who would need your services.
Start Blogging: Blogging is another very effective and inexpensive method of promoting your service.
If you’ve already followed the steps above to create a website, you can just add a page to it solely dedicated for blogging.
You could fill your blog about tips related to your service.
For example, if your service is “social media management”, you would write about tips like:
- How to write interesting posts for your Facebook page
- Tips to keep your followers engaged
- How to setup social media schedulers
- etc
You get the idea.
Start A YouTube Channel: This method doesn’t require you to invest any money, but a decent amount of time.
Just like what you would do on a blog, you can make videos about the same topics and upload it on YouTube.
This way your content is diversified for better engagement + if your videos gets a lot of views, you can start earning from ads and other monetizing methods.
If you need more guidance related to starting a YouTube channel and making money from it, I highly recommend checking out this super affordable course called YouTube Masterclass.
To conclude, these methods might take time to produces results but can push your business forward tremendously.
Start A Virtual Assistant Business Within 30 Days
If you’re really serious about becoming a virtual assistant and earning money from home, I highly recommend taking the 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success course by Gina Horkey.
For those of you who don’t know, Gina from Horkey Handbook is a mom of two kids and runs a successful virtual assistant business from home.
After working at a full-time personal finance job, Gina decided to start a virtual assistant business on the side for a potential career change.
Credit to her determination, she went on to earn a steady $4,000/month within the first 6 months. Even better, after 8 months of starting out, she quit her job and took it full-time.
And because she’s passionate about teaching people how she did it, she has created this mind-blowing course that goes into detail about:
- Services you can offer
- Who to offer them to
- How to price your services the right way
- How to find clients that’ll need your service
- How to setup your website the right way + what should be on it
- How to effectively pitch clients
- Invoicing
- Contracts
- Best practices when working with clients
- And A LOT more!
Most of the students who’ve enrolled in the course have seen results within a month or less.
Don’t take my word for it, check out these student success stories.
If you really enroll in this course and take action, there is nothing that can stop you from getting results.
Your Turn
You just discovered how to become a virtual assistant with no experience.
However, a word of warning – just knowing how to become one isn’t going to help in any way.
The key is that you need to take action on what you just learned.
And that’s why I encourage you to read this article from start to finish, review the steps and then start implementing them right away.
The sooner you’ll do, the sooner you’ll be inching closer to the kind of life you want.
Leave a comment below if you enjoyed reading this post. 🙂
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