The virtual assistant world is enticing, ever-evolving and exceptionally fun! It can be a lot of hard work, but the benefits will have you flying high. Because, being a virtual assistant gives you the opportunity to be your own boss, ditch that dreaded commute, celebrate casual “everyday” – not just Friday, and gives you the big F word that everybody wants… FREEDOM!
Now, we said it already – it’s not easy and can be overwhelming, but that’s what we’re here for. We are your “mother hens” and we are here to help you hatch your dream virtual assistant business.
Here are some quick tips to get you started.
Virtual Assistant Business Startup
(all the legal/money stuff)
This is the “nitty-gritty” business side of your biz, you know, all the money and legal stuff. But it’s not scary, we promise.
⇒ Pick your business name, have fun with it, but also think about SEO! And, be sure to check available website domains and trademarks too!
⇒ Set-up a new business bank account to keep your business and personal expenses separate. If you aren’t sure what type of account you’ll need, then make sure to check with your accountant.
⇒ Talk to an accountant, trust us, they’ll be your new biz bestie.
They can help you: → Determine if you should register as a sole-proprietor, LLC, partnership, social enterprise, etc. → Get a business license (if needed) → Plan for filing taxes
Building the Foundation of Your Virtual Assistant Business
(what to charge, what clients to work with & more)
Now that the legal/money stuff is sorted out, it’s time to think about how you’ll structure your business, the services you’ll offer, and who you want to work with. Make sure to take the time to really consider these things because having clients you love to work with makes a BIG difference!!
⇒ Who is your ideal customer? Take a moment to think about your education, background, and all of the things that you are interested in. But don’t worry there are lots of niches – if you’re stuck, just chirp at us and we’ll help.
⇒ Make a list of all of the services you’ll offer. These may be things like email marketing, social media management, website design, or customer service.
Know Your Worth
⇒ What are you worth and what will you charge for your services? Rates for virtual assistant’s vary based on experience, services offered, and even location plays a factor. So think about asking some virtual assistant’s with similar experience to you what they charge. Facebook Groups are a great place to crowd source this data, and we’ll be sharing more on this in our Facebook Group as well.
⇒ Once you determine your rates, how will you structure them? Will you charge hourly, will you offer packages and discounts? Think through all of this but be flexible too.
⇒ If you charge hourly, how will you track your time? There are some great free tools out there like Toggl and Timecamp, or you can even use your phone!
⇒ Get it in writing. It’s important to make sure to have a contract in place BEFORE you start working with any client. So, we always recommend using a site like RocketLawyer or work with a local lawyer to craft a rock-solid legal agreement.
⇒ Manage your tasks. Being organized is a big key to your success so we always recommend using a project management system. There are tons of free ones and we share our faves in the Facebook Group.
Marketing Your Virtual Assistant Business
(how to get the word out)
You’re well on your way, chicky. You’ve already handled the basics, so let’s have a little fun. Now it’s time to think about how you want your virtual assistant business to be viewed in the world.
So, let’s get crackin’!
⇒ Select your branding colors and font types. We likes to use Pinterest for inspiration.
⇒ Design a logo. You can mock-up one easily (and FREE!) using Canva or use a site like Fiverr and work with a designer.
⇒ Create new social media business accounts. Before creating accounts, consider what platforms your clients might use. We recommend having a Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest at a minimum.
Build Your Website
⇒ Simple is best. If you’re a designer then you’ll want to use the site to showcase your expertise. Otherwise, just keep it simple and don’t overthink it.
⇒ Claim your website domain and purchase website hosting. But, make sure to get owner privacy or telemarketers will be blowing up your phone!
⇒ Install WordPress. They have many free theme options.
⇒ Be sure to include a home, about, and services page (or put this all on one page) and then LAUNCH!
⇒ Craft Your 30-Second Intro. If you’re not sure what this is, then send us a chirp and we’ll point you in the right direction.
Finding Clients for Your Virtual Assistant Business
(landing your first or next client)
Woot! Woot! (or should we say “cluck, cluck” lol)
You’re really cracking on your virtual assistant business and you are ready to FLY! So that can only mean you’re ready to do one thing – MARKETING!
I know you’re excited to get started on client work, but all the things you can’t wait to do for your clients, you need to do them for your biz too. We know it can be overwhelming, so here’s where we recommend focusing first.
Local Marketing
⇒ Local marketing is the fastest way to your first client. If you’ve never been a virtual assistant before, using your local network will find you a client faster than any free online marketing will.
Here’s just a few ideas to get you started locally:
⇒ Reach out to your local business contacts and share how you’re services can help them save time and money – make sure to be specific!
⇒ Check out local businesses on social media and/or websites and share how you can help them improve. But be creative when reaching out so you stand out from everyone else.
⇒ Network at local events held by places like the Chamber of Commerce, SBA, and your local library!
⇒ Create a social media plan for your virtual assistant business, then watch it grow.
Take Action
Start with this:
⇒ Determine where your ideal clients spend the most time. Do they hang out in certain Facebook Groups? Do they love Pinterest? Are they an insta-gal?
⇒ Focus on just 1 or 2 social media platforms to get started.
⇒ Post regularly on these platforms. Share information like: your expertise, blogs you write, content from others that are relevant to your services, success stories, tips and tricks, etc.
⇒ Network online. Join Facebook Groups for products and services related to your niche. For example, if you offer email marketing services, join Facebook User Groups for Infusionsoft, Kartra, MailChimp, etc. Once you join, add to the conversation, answer questions that showcase your expertise and you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll get noticed!
We’re here to help
Great job, chicky! If you’ve followed all the steps above, you’re well on your way to having a virtual assistant business that SOARS!
But, don’t just wing it. Because you can rely on us here at the v.a. chicks to always have your back. We share our 20 years combined virtual assistant business experience with you here on this blog and in our Facebook Community too.
,So, shake a tail feather and join us for more tips, hacks, and lots of support to help you build your nest egg.
Facebook networking can be a very profitable way to find new clients. But, if you aren’t intentional about your networking strategy, it can also the single greatest waste of your time. Follow these 7 tips to tackle Facebook Networking like a pro, and grow your referrals and find your potential clients.
1) Niche it up!
Don’t just join random groups, but consider where you will find your ideal client. For example, if you are looking to support wellness coaches, then join groups where wellness coaches would join.
2) Join Application User Groups
Join groups related to the services you offer and applications you commonly use. For example, if you love working in WordPress then join some WordPress user groups. These groups are a great place to turn to technical troubleshooting, brainstorming solutions, learning from others, as well as a chance to share some of your knowledge.
Taking a minute to comment and help someone troubleshoot a simple issue they are having, could result in landing a new client.
Virtual assistant groups are great for growth (learning from your peers), but also for making connections. Look to connect with people with complementary skills. For example, if you specialize in digital marketing, you may want to look for someone who specializes in website design and maintenance. You can then refer clients and projects to each other and still each get to focus on doing what you live… while keeping your clients fully supported and HAPPY.
In order to make the most of your Facebook networking time, make sure you’re engaging in the groups you join. Post real questions – don’t just post to post – it comes across really lame. And make sure to comment on other posts to offer answers, suggestions, and input. And, follow the group rules and post on promo days (for the groups who have them).
5) Update Your Personal Profile
Make sure your personal profile clearly and easily states what you do, the name of your business, a link to your business page and has professional images featured as the first 5 images. These things can have a really big impact on your Facebook networking results.
6) Facebook Networking by Direct Messaging
There are lots of Facebook Networking professionals who will tell you to join groups, friends request a bunch of people, and then send them a direct message with your pitch. But we personally are not down with that. We think it’s a really icky and impersonal way to try to grow your biz.
Instead, we recommend authentically building relationships. When you’re active in groups, building your reputation, and making connections, you will gain both clients and referrals for sure.
7) Professional Page
Make sure to have a professional Facebook page and post one time per day. (Don’t forget to link your page on your personal profile!!) Your post’s should be educational and related to your services. Share content from other sources that are relevant to your ideal client such as Infusionsoft updates, major WordPress changes, big Facebook news, etc. And, at least once per week, create a new promotion for your services to get people interested. So, one week you could offer 10% off, and the next you could offer a free week of support when you pre-pay for 3 months, etc.
Up Your Facebook Networking Game
If you’re looking to really up your Facebook Networking game, join us in our Virtual Academy. We offer LIVE training on a variety of topics, templates, client educational materials, and materials to help you market yourself as a Virtual Assistant.
We asked some of the top social media strategists what their tips were for successful social media that produces results.
Here are their top 3 tips!
1) Always have a plan
As with anything, you’ll see the MOST results from your social media, when you have a plan. Simply posting great content and waiting for something to go viral is not enough.
Sure great content is essential part of any plan. But it can’t be all of it.
A good plan considers your target audience when deciding where, how often, what, and when to post to social media. But it doesn’t stop there.
2) Successful Social Media is Social
Successful social media is a conversation. Like any social setting, to really connect with those around you, but you must have a two-way conversation. No one likes the “Ms. I’m-a-pretty-big-deal” at the party who does nothing but talk about themselves and how great they are.
So make sure to actually engage with your audience. Ask questions. Really listen and seek to understand them. Share other peoples content that would appeal to your audience. After all, people share those who share.
And, when someone comments on, likes, or loves one of your posts, ALWAYS take the time to comment back. Even if only to say “thanks for the love.”
3) Be flexible
Successful social media isn’t rigid and cold. It’s relate-able and relevant. So, while we encourage that you always have a plan, be prepared to scrap your scheduled post for the day to share an amazing industry-relevant article that Forbes Magazine just posted.
In order to follow of second tip of being part of the conversation, it’s important that you are part of the conversation WHEN it’s happening.
Nothing would weaken your social credit more than post “OMG I just saw this. Is this blue or gold?” Cuz, Chickie, that is old news.
For more tips for successful social media, join us in our Virtual Academy.
If you want to learn how to do intentional social media, join us this month in our Virtual Academy. We’re talking about strategy, implementation, engage, collect metrics, and more.
In addition to LIVE training, our membership includes templates, client educational materials, and materials to help you marketing yourself as a successful Social Media Virtual Assistant.
Trying to find work as a social media virtual assistant can be tough. It seems that anyone with a Facebook account thinks they have the credentials to take the job.
But simply drafting and posting content is never going to get the client the results they want. Which is why clients come to us all of the time asking if we know anyone who can do social media AND get results.
The virtual assistants who can draft and post content are a dime a dozen. But a successful Social Media Virtual Assistant knows how to create an intentional strategy that produces results. Follow these simple steps to succeed as a social media virtual assistant as well as get and KEEP the clients.
Start with a Strategy
To really be intentional with your efforts, you must start with a strategy. This strategy should outline who your target market is, explores where they hang out on social media, and outlines things like how often you should post, what kind of content should be posted, etc.
Here’s a few things to keep in mind when drafting a strategy for a client:
Make sure the client is on the right platforms! Just because a client has a Pinterest account doesn’t mean they need one. Consider who the target market is and then determine where that person spends time on social media. Don’t waste time marketing on Twitter if your target is really hanging out on Facebook or YouTube.
Don’t post too often. Did you know that over posting can actually HURT your engagement? If you’re client does not have at least 10,000 followers on their Facebook page, posting more than once a day greatly reduces engagement.
Always include engagement in your strategy. If you’re only posting and never replying to comments, it’s the equivalent of standing on the street corner with a loud speaker spouting off sales pitches. This won’t net you much results. So always include time in your budget for daily engagement to go in and reply to comments, respond to messages, etc.
Implement Your Strategy Efficiently
Once you have a solid strategy in place, your job as a social media virtual assistant gets much easier. Now you know how often you should post and what type of content to post. And you should have an understanding of how much autonomy you have as well as when you need your clients approval.
We find that it’s a more efficient use of your clients time if you schedule your posts either weekly or monthly and then simply drop in to do engagement daily.
Pro-Tip: Third-party scheduling tools are not always the best option. For example, Facebook gives priority to content that is scheduled in THEIR scheduler rather than a scheduler like Hootsuite.
Collect Your Data
A successful social media virtual assistant doesn’t just post and run. Instead, they go back and evaluate the results. In order to do that, you need to take the time to collect your data monthly. By looking at things like likes and clicks you can determine what types of posts performed the best, when the best time is to post etc.
The reason why intentional social media virtual assistants stand out is that they know what statistics to look at in order to understand their target better. And, as a result, they are able to draft content that is going to produce better results.
If you aren’t collecting data, then you can’t possibly adjust your efforts to produce more results.
Adjust Your Efforts
While you should collect your statistics monthly, it isn’t necessary to look at the data and make adjustments that often. In fact, looking at the data over a 3 month period instead will help you be more intentional with your adjustments.
For example, if you note that Facebook is netting more sales than LinkedIn, perhaps you should recommend that more time and efforts be devoted to Facebook and minimal efforts be invested in LinkedIn. Some platforms, such as LinkedIn, are often part of the strategy simply to build and reinforce reputation only.
Become a Successful Social Media Virtual Assistant Today
Find out if you have what it takes to be a successful social media VA today. Take the 60-second quiz now www.virtualsuperpower.com
Optimize your blog today and make the most of your efforts.
We know, it’s easier said than done. Search engines, like Google, often change the algorithms they use to determine the top ranking websites (meaning they show up on the first page of search results.)
But there’s no point in writing a blog, if you can’t get traffic to the site so that people actually read it! Follow these blogging best practices to optimize your blog posts and start moving up in the rankings today!
Optimize Your Blog with Keywords
It’s well known that you need to have keywords in your blog for it to rank. But, you can’t just throw a bunch of words into a blog and hope the search engines pick it up. The ole hashtag method doesn’t apply with keywords.
Instead a more strategic approach should be used.
Here’s a few tips about Keywords:
Use “searchable terms! Your keywords will literally be useless if they aren’t terms that people will actually type into search engines to find your blog.
Don’t use a keyword or phrase more than once. That means, if you already wrote a blog with that keyword targeted, you should never target that keyword again in another blog. If you do, you are only competing with yourself for search engine rankings and will just spin your wheels when trying to optimize your blog.
Use your keyword in your blog title, headers, and through out your blog. To really optimize your blog, your keyword density should be around 1-2%. That means if your blog is 600 words, you should use your keyword rougly 6-12 times.
Chirping with Purpose
When you’re passionate about a topic, it can be easy to ramble. But make sure your “chirping” with purpose.
Make sure your blog is AT LEAST 300 words to ensure you’re writing something of value, and can authentically keep your keyword density strong. There isn’t a magic word count number to stick to. Instead, you want to keep your content engaging. If you chirp-on too long, you’ll bore your readers and they will start to click away.
Pro-Tip: Determine if your content is engaging by watching your bounce rate of each blog. This tells you whether a reader stays to read the entire blog, or “bounces” early.
Optimize Your Blog with Cornerstone Content
Every blog and website should have designated cornerstone content. Your cornerstone blog should be packed with information and updated often. The keyword or phrase that you choose for your cornerstone blog sould be the most common thing that someone would type in to Google to find you.
Many skip this important step because they think “there’s no way I will ever rank for that term!” So they don’t even try. But you CAN rank for that term if you set up your cornerstone content and optimize your blog right!
Find out if blogging in your superpower. Take this 60-second quiz now to discover your virtual superpower and all the tips and tricks you need to succeed: www.virtualsuperpower.com
Becoming a Virtual Assistant was one of the best decisions we ever made. But, it wasn’t easy. We stumbled and fumbled along the way and were faced with all types of challenges we never even considered.
✓ Problem clients ✓Worked for hours and never got paid ✓Had clients calling us at 2am and fire us when we were sleeping!
Yeah, it wasn’t pretty.
If we knew then what we know now, we would’ve saved ourselves so much time (and money!). So, to put yourself ahead of the game here’s what we wish we knewBEFORE we started working as virtual assistant.
Only Work With Your IDEAL Client.
Before taking on any client work, talk to the client first. You should view this call as a Discovery Call, and use it to ‘discover” more information about the project(s) and the potential clients’ working style, demeanor, etc.
If you get a bad feeling on this call, just say no. Listen to your gut, it’ll guide you when deciding whether you want to work with a client or not.
Never, ever take on a new client you’re not sure about.
PRO TIP: Stay tuned for Part II of this post to learn how to handle common client problems. And, if you’re not sure who your ideal client is, we give you all the tools you need to figure it out in the Virtual Academy.
Set Boundaries.
You are an entrepreneur and you control your schedule, your clients don’t.
Before taking on a client explain what your response time policy is, your normal working hours, planned time off, etc., and include this in your agreement with them too. Then, stick to it!
It’s harder to do than you may think.
When you begin working with a client, you want to impress them so you may work late one night, then another night, and then maybe help them on a weekend. You want to show them how awesome you are.
BUT…now the client expects you to be available ALL THE TIME. This is the BIGGEST mistake we see virtual assistants make. So, set your boundaries and let them protect you.
PRO TIP: You can still work on projects outside of your stated hours, just don’t let the client know. Use a program like Boomerang to schedule emails to be sent later so you can work when you want without messing up those boundaries.
Don’t Go It Alone!
It really does take a village. When we started we were alone. Then, we found a place to connect with other virtual assistants. That is when we really started living our dream.
Being an entrepreneur and a virtual assistant is way too hard to do it alone. You need support for yourself and your clients too. You’ll get asked all types of questions by your clients, and it’s simply not possible to know the answer to all of them. It’s also not possible to be an expert at every single task.
That’s why having a community to support you is so important. We never considered other virtual assistants as competition; they’ve always been our partners. Think of it as a community of people cheering you on. People you can ask for help when you’re busy, offer to help when they are and build relationships that can make your biz even more profitable. Now, that’s what we call a win-win.
PRO TIP: That’s why we created the v.a. chicks to form a community of support for the best chicks in the world. It’s a place where you can delegate work to other, get answers to your tech questions or client problems, and find the support you need.
Next Steps…
These are just some of the obstacles that stood in our way of become successful virtual assistants. If you’re ready to take the next step, take this 60-second quiz now to discover your virtual superpower and all the tips and tricks you need to succeed: www.virtualsuperpower.com
