How To Become Virtual Assistant
virtual assistantA Virtual Assistant provides support services from a remote location. This means you will offer clients services on a day to day basis, as a contractor or as a self-employed. The job scope of a virtual assistant varies from one business to another. Small business owners, solopreneurs, busy professionals, and bloggers all use virtual assistants. A virtual assistant is anyone who offers services to other business owners in exchange for upon fee. After become a virtual assistant you have a happy life, a business that gives you money but also… time for yourself to do what you want.
Some traits that a virtual assistant must include:
- Patience
- Honesty
- Discretion
- Personable
- Professional
- Organized
Virtual assistants consist of individuals as well as companies who work remotely as an independent professional, providing a wide range of products and services both to businesses as well as customers. Clients pay for 100% productive work and can work with virtual assistants.
Services provided by a Virtual Assistant:
- Customer support
- Community management and moderation
- Project management
- Processing online orders and refunds
- Website design
- WordPress maintenance
- Graphic design and layout
- Calendar management and travel arrangements
- Social media management
- Editing videos
- Lead generation
- Content creation for blogs and ghostwriting
- Editing proofreading
- Transcription
- Content research
- Keyword research
- Performing outreach
- Managing product launches
- Creating sales pages
- Data entry
- Email management
- Bookkeeping
Steps to Become a Virtual Assistant
Choose Your Business Structure
According to Small Business Law, there are different ways of starting a business. Which one of the small business structures are right for your Virtual Assistant business is an important part. You will consider the following points before starting a business:
- Your physical location of the business
- The types of clients you will be working with
- The type of Virtual Assistant work you will be doing
- Your risk tolerance
- The different business structures available in your area
After considering these points you must decide on one of the small business structures. The small business structures you choose will depend on the nature and size of your business and should suit your needs.
The types of small business structure are as follows:
- Sole trader or sole proprietor – A sole trader or sole proprietorship means one person owns the business. A sole trader does not have to register the business.
- Partnership – A partnership is a business that has between 2 and 20 partners. The partners own the business together. If two or more people want to start a partnership, they should sign a written agreement. The agreement will contain three things: (i) what happens to the assets of the business if the partnership ends,(ii) how the partners will share the profits, (iii) what happens if one of the partners wants to leave the partnership
- Company – Companies have to obey all the rules of the Companies Act, which is a long and complicated law. A company has shareholders and directors. Shareholders can be people or other companies. Shareholders put the money into the business and are the owners of the business. Directors are the managers of the business.
Decide Virtual Assistant Services
You should consider those services where your skill and area of interest matches. Then you gather your knowledge and find those services on the web. After you become expertise in those services if possible try to learn your services. By doing this you will get more clients and become an expert. The more specialized your services and the more experience you have, the more you can charge.
Decide on Your Pricing Structure
After focus on services you will give attention to the pricing strategy of your services. Also keep in mind that from the point of view of business owners, there are perks to hiring a freelance virtual assistant instead of a part or full-time employee.
Types of pricing types:
- Hourly rate pricing - Hourly rate pricing is where you set a particular hourly price for your services, keep track of your time, and bill your client after the work has been completed.
- Project-based packages - A Project-Based Package can be used when a client has a one-time project to complete, and you will charge them a flat rate fee for the project.
- Retainer packages - A retainer is a monthly package for those who need reoccurring help in their business.
- Usable hours packages - With this type of pricing method, your client will pay for a certain amount of hours, to be used at their discretion.
Advertisement for Virtual Assistant Services
Business owners have realized that social media are a great way of starting advertisement. Virtual assisting and social media management are growing bigger every day as a legitimate way to make money online. To find clients, social media marketing alone is not enough. The first step is doing some keyword research. This helps you develop a list of the words, phrases, questions, and topics your clients are thinking and asking about so that you can use them in your marketing.
The various ways of advertisement:
- Have a well-designed website
- Offer educational media opportunities like YouTube videos, Google chats Facebook live sessions, live webinars, and podcasts.
- Blog about online business and your own experiences as a business owner
- Advertise — online and offline
- Create your freelance service site
- Make connections on LinkedIn
- Let others know about your services on social media
Where to find Virtual Assistant Jobs for Beginners
- Fancyhands
- VANetworking.com
- Upwork
- oDesk
- Indeed
- 99 Dollar Social
- Time Etc
- Vicky Virtual
- Belay
- Zirtual.com
- Virtual Assistant Forums
- ZipRecruiter
Services do a Virtual Assistant Provide
There are plenty of services you can offer:
Social Media
- Understand how to create headlines
- Familiar with copywriting and marketing
Blogging
- Write, edit, and proofread blog posts
- Moderate blog comments
- Create graphics for blog posts or social media like Pinterest
- Improve SEO
- Remove broken links, add affiliate links
- Manage readers’ emails
- Schedule social media
E-commerce
- Manage customer service
- Track orders, including order entry, shipment, and invoicing.
- Deal with returns/exchanges
- Manage inventory
- Help with marketing
- Website maintenance
General Admin
- Managing calendars and schedule
- Managing emails
- Booking appointments
- Making travel arrangements
- File management
- Data entry
- Setting up spreadsheet
Content Production
- Writing blog posts
- Research content ideas
- Create graphics
- Source photos
- Take product pictures
- Edit pictures
- Create videos
Finance
- Bookkeeping
- Invoice creation
- Payments processing
- Payroll
Must have tools for startups - Recommended by StartupTalky
- Convert Visitors into Leads- SeizeLead
- Manage your business smoothly- Google Workspace
- International Money transfer- XE Money Transfer