Providing services is one of the fastest ways to generate an income online. There are so many different services you can offer – writing, graphics, and work as a virtual assistant. The latter is what we are going to talk about today.
As a virtual assistant, you can work from the comforts of home while working for a client or multiple clients. As a virtual assistant, you might do some writing, graphics work, data entry, customer communication, affiliate management, traffic generation, social media, and so on. There are so many options!
One of the best benefits of being a virtual assistant is that every day might be different. You’ll work on whatever it is your client wants you to work on. That can be very exciting and can take away from some of the mundane nature of being a freelancer doing the same thing each day.
Typically, the skills you’ll need as a virtual assistant are entry-level. You’ll need to know how to do some typing, how to research, how to navigate the web, and you’ll do some learning on the fly. You might be training in your job before you complete certain tasks. But you can often easily get the hang of it because the tasks themselves are usually not too difficult.
As a virtual assistant, you might work full-time or part-time. Typically, you’ll work by the hour or you’ll get paid a set amount each week or each month or whatever you and your client decide on.
Virtual assistant work is great for anyone who wants to generate an extra income from home. Best of all, you don’t really need experience to get started and there is great income potential.
Is Being a Virtual Assistant Right for You?
First, decide if virtual assistant work is right for you. Are you okay with following the instructions your boss will give you? Every day, or whenever you and your boss decide, you’ll be expected to complete the tasks they give you. You might have set tasks every week or every month or they might assign you tasks on a daily basis.
You have to typically be flexible as a virtual assistant. You have to be willing to learn as you go and to make sure you check in with your boss on a regular basis. You have to do a good job – you are running a lot of the components of their business behind the scenes.
In some cases, you might want to be a virtual assistant as a new career – that’s wonderful and there are bound to be plenty of opportunities now and in the future for you to do so.
Or maybe you want to become a virtual assistant to sort of learn the ropes of online business. You can work under some very successful online marketers, earn a great income, and then move on to do your own projects once you gain your footing.
Even though you’re working from home, you will have to stick with a schedule and you will have to produce on a consistent basis. Your client has to be able to depend on you.
If that all seems good to you, then you’ll want to get started as a virtual assistant in order to start generating an income as soon as possible.
Offering Your Services as a Virtual Assistant
Now that you’ve decided you want to become a virtual assistant, it’s time to make it known to potential clients that you are offering your services.
Think about what experience you have that will fit in line with this. Maybe you’re familiar with writing web articles, writing e-books, writing sales copy, doing data entry, managing customers, installing WordPress, and so on.
What you can do is create a website that advertises your services and the hours and rates you have available. Find other virtual assistants’ websites for inspiration. You might take on just one client or you might take on multiple clients. Put some scarcity on your offer so a client will hire you more readily.
Once you set up a website advertising your services, you can start to advertise it. Put it in your signature on forums. Let it be known on social media that you are offering your services as a virtual assistant.
If you’ve done any networking with business owners already, put the word out that you are available. Contact any friends or any other virtual assistant you now – they might be able to refer you to someone or give you overflow work.
When you’re first starting out, you might offer your services at lower rates and then move your rates up as you gain experience—there’s nothing wrong with that.
Getting Virtual Assistant Work through Bidding Sites
If you are a little bit worried about running your own website and driving traffic to your website in an attempt to get clients, then you might try to find virtual assistant work through bidding sites, like Upwork.
Every day, business owners post jobs here, trying to find virtual assistants either part-time, temporary, or full-time. You can read their job descriptions and apply for these jobs.
Make sure you are following exactly what their job description says you should do in your application. Don’t just mass apply to different jobs without reading their full descriptions, because people will weed you out if you don’t follow their directions.
With a little bit of work, you should be able to quickly win some work as a virtual assistant.
Getting Steady Work as a Virtual Assistant
Of course, what you’re probably looking for is to have steady work as a virtual assistant. You don’t want to work a little bit here and there, unless you plan to work just part-time.
So, when you find a good fit in a client, then you might start working for them on a more full time basis or even exclusively.
There are certain business owners out there who will want a more exclusive relationship rather than having to compete for your time with other business owners.
Building Your Skills as a Virtual Assistant
Remember to continue building your skills as a virtual assistant. In some cases, your clients will give you training materials to help you. You can and should also be learning on your own.
If you want to earn more as a virtual assistant, then you’d do well to learn the skills of copywriting, writing books and reports, driving traffic, and other high-level, higher earning activities.
You really want to stand out in a crowded pool of virtual assistants. And when I say the pool is “crowded” I don’t mean to say that there’s no room for you. There absolutely is room for you. There is very high demand in the field of virtual assistants if you’re willing to put yourself out there and pound the virtual pavement until you get some jobs.
If you have more specialized skills that fewer virtual assistants have, you’ll be able to get work very easily and you’ll be able to earn a higher income.
Building up to a Full-Time Income as a Virtual Assistant
In addition to building up those specialized skills, you can really build up your income as a virtual assistant by finding clients who will truly come to value you in their business.
This can happen much sooner than you might think. If you work hard and really dedicate yourself to this, then you can earn a fantastic income as a virtual assistant.
One of the best things is that you can start with this income generation method and maybe even get a client as soon as today. If you decide that you want to do this and you know you have the skills do it, there’s nothing to stop you. Virtual assistant work is high in demand – so get out there and start generating income.
You may want to be a virtual assistant forever or you might just use it as a stepping stone. Either way, get started today if you need to generate an income. There’s no reason to say that you can’t earn any money online, because this is one income generation method that you can earn with. I can’t wait to hear your success story.